


Steve and The Soldier

by 014469



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Angst, Bad Puns, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Protective Steve Rogers, Smut, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-03
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 07:50:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8196628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/014469/pseuds/014469
Summary: Six months after the Winter Soldier surrenders to SHIELD, a newly-rehabilitated Bucky Barnes is transferred to Agent Steve Rogers' team. Bucky Barnes is a man with something to prove, desperate to make up for his years as an assassin for Hydra. Steve Rogers, however, does not want that beautiful asshole Barnes anywhere near his team. Why does Fury want them to work together when they obviously don't get along? Human AU in which Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes are SHIELD Agents who are forced to work together despite mutual mistrust and dislike. As the spectre of Bucky's time working for Hydra comes back to haunt him, however, they have to work together to take it down and discover a little more about each other in the process...





	1. Surrender

**Author's Note:**

> This is my attempt at writing something a little more fast-paced than my other, emotion-heavy fic.

OK, now Steve was pissed. This guy – this _Winter Soldier_ asshole – was gonna get smashed from here to Wednesday if he tried to hurt his team one more time. Steve watched carefully, keeping his shield up, while the Winter Soldier tried to circle round him to where Fury and Hill were trying to resuscitate a gasping Coulson. He could hear the wet sounds of Coulson struggling to breathe, but reminded himself to stay focussed. 

The Winter Soldier, perhaps sensing his momentary distraction, lunged forwards and caught him off guard, stabbing downwards with his knife trying to get at Steve’s shoulder. Steve forcibly shoved him away, thankful for the shields’ heft, and followed it up with a resounding punch to the Soldiers’ right shoulder. He had learned early on in this fight to avoid the left arm – some high-tech armouring perhaps, making it a portable, flexible version of his own shield? He wasn’t quite sure of what was behind it, but he knew to avoid it. The Soldier backed up, shaking out his right arm as he casually flipped the knife into his left hand, the move distractingly graceful. Steve lowered the shield for a moment and spoke. 

‘You won’t walk away from this. Drop the knife and surrender to SHIELD, and we can talk.’

Behind his mask, the Soldier seemed to grimace. 

‘Not a chance, pal.’

‘Come on man, just drop the knife. We’ve been after you for months and we found you once, we can find you again.’

‘You gonna try and charm me some more, asshole? I might surrender just to get you to shut up.’ The Soldier’s voice was rough and rasping, like he was out of breath, but Steve could see that he wasn’t even breathing heavily. 

‘Steve!’ called Hill form behind him. ‘There’s no time, Coulson’s flatlining! Finish up here, we have to get out!’

Steve faced the Soldier, jaw set. ‘Hear that? You’ve almost killed my friend, so I’ll give you one last chance – put your weapons down and come with us.’

The Soldier growled, low and menacing. ‘You think I’m going to be SHIELD’s prisoner? Your fucking chess pawn? Not a fuckin’ chance. Not again.’ He advanced on Steve, who was forced to back up as the Solider clashed with his shield once more. What did the Soldier mean, ‘not again’? There was no time to think about that now. Steve ducked, wove and tried to counter, but he couldn’t deny the Soldier’s training was impressive. He seemed to be everywhere at once, exploiting every chink in Steve’s guard. All too soon, Steve had to drop back, bleeding from a dozen or more cuts.

Out of the corner of his eye, Fury stood up. Steve motioned for him to keep himself back, but it seemed that Fury was not interested in joining the fight. 

‘How about an offer? Come work for us, join SHIELD, and no-one will keep you prisoner.’ 

What was Fury doing? Offering a deal to this asshole when Coulson was still bleeding out on the ground – like he was the kind of guy you save? Steve could hardly believe it – but then, this was Nick Fury, after all. He was _the_ super-spy, so he must have his reasons. 

The Soldier laughed, but there was no mirth in it. ‘Just like that, huh? Yeah, I’m sure SHIELD will welcome me with open arms. Not like I’ve killed scores of your agents or anything.’

‘You have my word, Soldier. No jail cells, no prisoners. Make a fresh start, away from Hydra.’

‘Your word means nothing to me.’ The man’s grey eyes, however, told another story. They flashed with uncertainty, and something like… longing? ‘I’m the fuckin’ Fist of Hydra. They’ll never let me go. I’d be dead before the month is out, even if I did want to come with you, which I don’t.’

‘So, Fist of Hydra, where are your handlers now? I don’t see’em.’

Steve stepped quietly back, knowing that the time for blunt instruments was over. Fury was making more headway with this man in two minutes of persuasion than he had in twenty minutes of scrapping. He would almost feel bad, if Coulson’s life wasn’t on the line. 

The Soldier looked around, seeming more hesitant. 

‘No. They’ll come for me.’ He repeated, less harshly than before. His head swung around, taking in their surroundings, the trashed rooftop of the Triskelion, the abandoned smoking hulls of SHIELD aircraft. Fury was right, Hydra seemed to have retreated and left him. Still keeping one eye on Steve, the Soldier seemed to be fiddling with some sort of busted locator beam on his armoured left sleeve. He poked a small screen desperately, but it remained stubbornly blank.

‘Quinjet approaching, two minutes.’ Hill crouched over Coulson’s unmoving body, desperation on her face.

‘Two minutes, Soldier.’ Fury’s voice was quieter now, more thoughtful.

The Soldier sighed, and although Steve couldn’t see anything behind his mask but his eyes, he thought that the Soldier looked sad.

‘Alright. You can have me.’ He hung his head and held out his wrists in front of him like he expected to be cuffed. Steve moved for the set of cuffs he kept in his utility belt, but Fury snapped a glare at him. Steve dropped his hand and looked over at the Soldier again. The man was reaching up to unclasp his mask from his face and – holy fuck – the man behind the mask was gorgeous. Wary grey eyes and a straight, unbroken nose above a wide, red mouth that was currently turned down at the corners with misery, a strangely vulnerable-looking jawline. His wispy brown hair fell down to his jawline, framing his face and making him look almost delicate. Now that the man was unmasked, he looked… smaller. Less intimidating, more… lost.  
Behind him, the Quinjet roared down to land amid the wreckage of Hydra’s failed attack. The cargo door opened and SHIELD medical rushed out. Steve and the Soldier watched as they loaded Coulson onto a gurney, shouting instructions and incomprehensible numbers to one another. Hill ran with them back into the belly of the jet, absolutely in charge of the situation as she kept one hand on Coulson’s shoulder. 

Steve took a deep breath. Nick could trust the Soldier all he wanted, but Steve was going to take some winning over. He’d watched too many of his friends and colleagues bleed out at the Soldier’s hand to trust him lightly. If Nick wasn’t going to cuff him, well then Steve would make it his personal mission not to let the Soldier out of his sight until they were safely away from all this. He approached the man, who was watching the medical team with obvious nervousness, and the two of them started to walk towards the Quinjet.

‘Hey.’ Steve let his voice signal his approach, not wanting to startle the Soldier. He turned to face Steve, contrition written plain on his face.   
‘Listen up, pal. Fury may trust you, but I don’t. Not as far as I can fuckin’ throw you. So – you try anything, I won’t hesitate to take you down.’

The Soldier smirked. ‘As far as threatening speeches go, I’ve heard better.’ He said dismissively, before turning back to his wary observance of the medical team. After a moment, he said ‘So where do you keep your Chair?’

‘My what?’ There was something about the way the Soldier had said the last word that made Steve think it should be capitalised. 

‘SHIELD – where do they keep their Chair? You know – for punishment? Conditioning? Not ringing any bells for you? Don’t play dumb with me, I know what’s ahead. Only way Fury can promise me no jail cells is if he’s gonna put me in the Chair. I know that, I’m not an idiot. Look, just tell me, alright? How bad is it?’ The Soldiers’ voice had become tight.

Steve stopped in his tracks and took a long, hard look at the Soldier, who had also stopped. The man was staring at him defiantly. ‘Come on, Cap. Don’t be an asshole. I know SHIELD can’t be messing with your memories, and I don’t for one moment think that you’re really that ignorant.’

Steve opened his mouth, nonplussed. A nasty suspicion about the Soldier was starting to form in his brain. Slowly, so that the Soldier had ample time to move away, Steve reached out and grasped his shoulder tightly.

‘There is no Chair, Soldier.’ He felt the man stiffen under him, and was immediately the recipient of the Soldier’s best Murder Eyes. 

‘Don’t call me that.’

‘Well I don’t know your name.’

The Soldier pondered for a moment. ‘My name is Bucky.’ 

‘Thanks for telling me that, Bucky.’ Steve felt like he was calming a wild animal – a grumpy, six-foot-tall wild animal with a death glare to rival Natasha’s, but one that needed gentling, nonetheless. ‘I’m telling you the truth, whatever Hydra did to you, there is no Chair at SHIELD.’

 

The Soldier smacked Steve’s hand away from his shoulder. 

‘No need to be a shithead about it, jeez. Don’t want to tell me about the Chair? Fine. I’m sure I’ll find out for myself soon enough anyway.’ 

The Soldier – no – Bucky – rolled his shoulders into a resigned line and stalked away from Steve towards the waiting Quinjet. Steve followed him helplessly, disturbed beyond words at the image of this Chair that he was left with.


	2. Team

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Six months after the Winter Solider turns himself in, Bucky Barnes had started a new job at SHIELD, impatient to crack some Hydra skulls. The only problem - everyone at SHIELD hates him, most of all that asshole Rogers...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: violence, blood, guns.

_Six months later…_

Newly-minted SHIELD Agent Bucky Barnes stepped off the Quinjet and strode over to where Director Fury stood motionless. 

‘Mission report, Barnes.’

‘Target eliminated, sir. No civilians injured, the whole thing went off a success.’

Fury raised one eyebrow, and turned to the redheaded Agent who had come to stand at Bucky’s right shoulder. 

‘Agent Romanov, did Barnes complete the mission assessment to a high standard?’

‘Yes sir. Barnes’ field test was impressive. I recommend he be posted to active duty.’

Fury looked back to Bucky. 

‘Good work, Agent Barnes. The two of you will debrief fully with Hill in one hour. Dismissed.’

Agents Barnes and Romanov needed no further prompting as they headed into the newly-rebuilt Triskelion to hit the showers. They stepped into a waiting elevator car, and Bucky finally let his shoulders sag with exhaustion. He thought he’d done well, passing his mission assessment before his class-mates at SHIELD Academy had even got round to studying for their final exams. At least Hydra’s training was good for something. 

‘Your mission test was a success, Barnes.’ Natasha’s voice was cool, as usual, but Bucky had got to know her well enough over the past six months that he could hear the note of pride in her words. 

‘Yeah. I can’t wait to get back out in the field again. I’ve been itching to get out of the Academy for months. It’s about time I made amends for what I did all those years.’

Natasha clasped Bucky’s right shoulder, her eyes troubled. ‘Barnes, that wasn’t you. That was Hydra. You know that.’

‘I know. But I did it. My finger on the trigger, my eyes in the scope.’

‘You’ve got red in your ledger – who hasn’t? I know… I know that you’re nervous about starting over at SHIELD, but you’ve come so far in the last six months. You’re not the man you were, Fury sees that, I see that. You should see that, too.’

Bucky smiled at Nat, who’d become perhaps his only really close friend in the time since he’d surrendered all those months ago. She’d experienced something similar herself, she explained, when she defected from Russia years ago and joined SHIELD. She understood having something to prove. Now that Bucky had undergone countless psychological assessments, field assessment, weapons assessments, fitness assessments and fuck knows what else assessments, and completed the mandatory number of training missions, he was finally deemed ready to become a regular SHIELD agent and join a team. How far he’d come, he thought, as the elevator doors opened, and how far he had yet to go. He hadn’t approached Agent Coulson since the day he’d almost – well, that didn’t bear thinking about. And as for Agent Rogers – as far as Rogers was concerned, Bucky might as well have been a ghost. After leaving the SHIELD rehabilitation facility, Rogers had made a point of avoiding him in the corridors and training rooms of the Triskelion, making it perfectly clear how he felt about him. Bucky, in turn, avoided Rogers. It was an unspoken mutual dislike, but a powerful one. Bucky knew, as he grabbed a towel from his locker and headed to the showers, that he would have to break the ice with Rogers sooner or later, hell, he might even end up working with the guy at some point, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to face Rogers’ judgement just yet. He wasn’t sure why it bothered him so much, that Rogers obviously still hated him, but somehow the first man who’d given him anything close to a glimpse of kindness after his years of hell with Hydra had lodged under Bucky’s skin like a splinter, and all he could think about was that he wanted a chance to prove himself to that judgemental asshole, fuck knows why. 

As Bucky stood under the hot jets of water and let the steam wash away the dirt of the mission, he heard the doors of the bathroom open and shut. Someone else had come in. Bucky tensed immediately, six months not quite enough time to rid him of the urge to go for a weapon every time someone unknown was in the room and he couldn’t see them. His relationship with a lot of the other SHIELD Agents ranged from disdain to outright hostility, understandable given his history as Hydra’s best assassin, so he was always half-expecting a sly crack at him, a cruel laugh or even, as ill-advised as it was, a rare attempt at a beatdown.

He’d put a stop to the attempts to smack him around fairly quickly after he’d started training, when he let it be known that anyone who tried to rough him up would find themselves on the bad side of a punch from his metal arm. He hadn’t expected them to get the message all at once, and there was still the occasional asshole with a grudge, but all in all he could handle the worst of the hazing. Nevertheless, he was still tense, until he realised that there was no way this was an Agent trying to sneak up on him, because the other person was gasping in what sounded like pain. Whoever was in here was letting out little suppressed whines of agony, obviously trying not to let anyone else hear. Bucky turned off his shower. 

‘Hello?’ he called out into the steamy room. ‘Are you alright?’

‘Who’s there?’ came a shaky reply and oh fuck, Bucky knew that voice. Rogers. 

‘It’s Barnes.’ He replied, waiting for the door to slam and Rogers to leave. Instead, he heard a louder whine and a sudden hiss of breath, followed by the wet slapping sound of skin on tile. Bucky turned off the shower and wrapped his towel around his waist, waiting for some kind of answer. 

‘Rogers?’ He called out. ‘You alright?’ he stepped outside the shower stall and investigated where the sounds had come from. When he rounded the corner to the sinks, he swore to himself. Rogers had passed out on the bathroom floor in a pool of what looked to be his own blood. He was wearing tactical gear, the idiot probably just come in from a mission without seeing the doctors, and now he was Bucky’s problem. Fuck. He crouched down by Rogers’ side and shook his shoulder gently.

‘Rogers? Agent Rogers? Wake up. Agent – oh shit.’ Rogers wasn’t waking up. Bucky rushed to the door, opened it and hollered for help down the corridor, before hurrying back to Rogers’ side.  
‘Rogers, hey Rogers! Dammit, why’d you have to faint in the middle of my shower? I was just getting to enjoy it. Look – I’m really sorry about this.’ He apologised to Rogers’ unconscious body, before drawing his right hand back and slapping Rogers once, hard, across the face. Rogers’ whole body flinched and he opened both eyes in shock. Bucky breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t think he’d ever been this close to Rogers’ face before. Those blue eyes certainly were something. They were widening in confusion and hurt now as their owner swallowed and looked around.

‘How’d I get on the floor? Did you – did you hit me you bastard?’ Rogers shook his head suddenly and sat up, nearly cracking Bucky’s forehead with his fucking thick asshole skull. 

‘No need to thank me Rogers. I only interrupted a truly awesome shower to help you after you passed out in a pool of your own blood, which, by the way, you might want to do something about. You’re still bleeding.’ He added helpfully, just to spite him.

Rogers looked down at himself, seeming to only just then register the multiple stab wounds to his chest and arms, then glared back at Bucky. He worked his jaw and touched a hand to the place where Bucky had slapped him. 

‘So you just had to hit me, huh?’

What an idiot. Did he seriously not realise that he was hurt, or did he think he was so tough that he didn’t need medical attention? Either way, this ungrateful sonofabitch could go fuck himself. Bucky had tried to help and this was the thanks he got. His first proper conversation with Rogers in six months, and it couldn’t be more obvious that the guy still hated him as much as he did back when Bucky had surrendered. 

Bucky watched as Steve’s eyes found his for the first time, lingered for a long, sticky moment, then travelled down to stare at his left shoulder. Fuck this guy, Bucky knew that his scars weren’t pretty, but there was no need to stare. 

Bucky backed off, muttering to himself under his breath. Seriously, Rogers was an asshole, but he had bigger things to worry about, like finishing his goddamn shower. Everyone else could go to hell until he had at least cleaned up properly.

\------------ 

Steve watched Bucky retreat into his shower stall and turn the water back on. Feeling a little guilty – he had been kind of an asshole, after all, the guy was only trying to help – he slowly got to his feet. He couldn’t even remember how he ended up in the bathroom. The last thing he recalled was that Clint and Tony had both been badly injured on their mission and all that mattered was getting them into the medical bay. He’d seen that Doctor Banner and his team needed to focus all their attention on the two Agents, so he thought that his own injuries could wait until his team mates were stabilised. He guessed, from the look of things, that he hadn’t realised quite how badly he was hurt, sudden absence adrenaline from the mission coupled with blood-loss making his brain woozy. And then he’d apparently passed out on the bathroom floor, only to be found by the one person Steve never wanted to let see him vulnerable like that. For all that Bucky Barnes was a good agent, according to Natasha, there was something about the guy that Steve wasn’t sure about. Something guarded about his eyes, something wary and watchful and hungry. Maybe that was his own paranoia coming into play, but Steve wasn’t certain that the guy could be trusted. 

Although – Barnes had helped him, hadn’t he? Despite his aching jawline – Barnes packed one hell of a punch – Steve didn’t like to think about what might have happened if no-one had been around when he’d passed out. And – part of his reaction had been shock at waking up in the arms of a half-naked man with very well-cut abs… and a metal arm attached to his body at the shoulder. He stared at Bucky’s closed stall door. 

‘Hey, uh? Barnes? I – thank you. If I seemed ungrateful – I’m not.’

There was no answer from the man on the other side of the door. With a resigned sigh, Steve sluiced the worst of the bloodstains off the floor with water from the taps, and tiredly pushed open the bathroom door. Maybe it was time to head for the medical bay after all. 

\---------- 

Bucky listened to Steve grit out an apology in silence, his thoughts conflicted. Rogers was an asshole, that was clear, but a beautiful one. Those sky-blue eyes, blond hair and acres of muscle, well, those had been the stuff of all his fantasies come to life, even if the guy they belonged to was a first-degree asshat. Bucky thought about what it would be like to be held by those powerful arms, to go to sleep warm and wake up safe. He had no doubt that no-one could have nightmares when protected by such arms. Aw shit, he was pathetic. Daydreaming about being cuddled, like a sap. SHIELD was turning him soft. Bucky finished off his shower and dried off, noting that Rogers’ blood had already drained away from the tile floor. It was as though their encounter had never happened, he thought as he headed out to the dreaded full debrief. 

 

 

\-----------  
_Two weeks later…_

‘Rogers! Are you even listening?’

‘Yes ma’am, Agent Hill!’ Steve jerked himself upright from where he had been almost asleep, his face resting in his hand. Across from him, Natasha snickered, and Steve glared at her in response. 

‘So you’ve got no complaints about what I just said, then?’

Steve wracked his brains trying to remember what Maria had been talking about before he dozed off… something about new recruits?

‘No ma’am, I am one hundred percent on board with… everything that you just said.’

Hill gave him a look that said, _Gotcha!_

‘Well then, if Agent Rogers has no objections, I’ll bring him in!’

What had he just agreed to?

Hill opened the door to one side of the briefing room, and motioned for someone to come inside. In walked – Barnes, of all people – and Steve could only listen in stunned silence as Hill introduced him as the newest member of Steve’s team. 

\------------- 

Bucky sat outside the briefing room, anxiously waiting to be called in. This was it, two weeks after passing his first mission assessment, he was finally being assigned to a real field team! He didn’t know what strings Nat had had to pull, but she had managed to get him onto her own team, Strike One, which was all kinds of awesome. At least this way, he’d have one friend on the team, even if all the other Agents hated him. Whatever, he didn’t care. As long as he got some sweet, sweet payback for Hydra making him their bitch for ten years, he couldn’t care less about what his team-mates thought of him. The door opened and Hill motioned for him to enter. He did so, anxious to get a glance at his new colleagues. As soon as he entered the room, he mentally kicked himself. How could he forget that Rogers was the leader of Strike One? Shit, now he was going to have to put up with taking orders from that idiot, at least for this mission. Rogers was glaring at him from across the table as he took a seat, obviously just as unhappy as he was about working together.  
\---------- 

Maria Hill looked between the two men, Rogers and Barnes, and for the hundredth time that day questioned Director Fury’s decision to put them together in a team. The last thing she needed was hostility between team-mates. Although, Natasha had seemed so certain, and she was never wrong… Maria shook herself internally, and got on with the briefing. 

\----------  
Later that evening…

‘But Rogers hates me, Nat!’ Bucky thumped his head down on the low bar, beer in hand.

‘Steve does not hate you, idiot. He just needs time to come around to you. Besides, you should be overjoyed that you get to work with me from now on.’ Nat poked her friend in the ribs, unable to make him see that this could be a good opportunity for both men to move past their hostility. Honestly, men.

‘Seriously, Barnes, all I’ve heard from you for the last six months has been Steve this, Rogers that. I know that you want to prove to him that you’ve changed, and now’s your chance to do just that – I don’t see why you’re so upset about this?’

Bucky only thumped his head on the bar again, unwilling to hear the sense in his friends’ words. 

‘But why did it have to be for my first mission, Nat? Couldn’t you have at least waited for things to settle down?’

‘What, you mean after your naked and steamy encounter in the bathroom?’

‘For crying out loud, neither of us was naked!’

‘But you wouldn’t have minded if you were?’

‘For fucks sake, Nat! It’s not like that!’ 

Natasha stared into Bucky’s eyes, expression completely deadpan. Bucky promptly crumbled under the weight of her glare. 

‘Alright, I admit, the guy’s good-looking, if the All-American Boy-Scout look is your thing, I guess. But that doesn’t change the fact that he is an asshole! And besides, you didn’t see him, he does hate my guts!’ 

‘Steve’s not an asshole, Barnes. He’s just a little… overprotective of his team, sometimes. Trust me, give him a chance and he might just surprise you. Now sit up, drink your shitty beer and stop moping. We’re supposed to be celebrating here.’

Bucky drained the rest of his beer, thinking to himself that Steve surprising him wasn’t very fucking likely. Nat was his first, last and only friend in the whole of SHIELD, and he was lucky to have her. It was far too much to hope that one day Rogers might be anything other than hostile towards him. For now, he was going to drink his shitty beer, put all thoughts of blue eyes and huge muscled arms out of his mind, and celebrate finally getting his training wheels off. 

\------------ 

‘But Nat! – ’

‘No buts, Steve. You give that guy a break, you hear me? You’ve read his file, you know the sort of things Hydra did to him, can’t you understand that he might be a little wary?’

‘Natasha, it isn’t that I think he’s a bad guy. I know that what he did all those years wasn’t his choice. Fuck, I still remember his face when he asked me about the goddamn Chair.’ 

Steve shuddered at the memory, the sick feeling still in his gut. ‘What bothers me is that I don’t think he’ll be a good fit for our team, he’s an asshole and he has no sense of being in a team. I’ve seen his field assessment scores, Nat. I know the guy’s an excellent marksman, tracker, whatever. But in teamwork exercises, his scores plummet, every damn time. He can’t act as part of a team, and I can’t work with a guy I don’t trust to have my back in a bad situation.’

Natasha was quiet at that, sipping her coffee and looking away at the bland interior of the Starbucks as though it would give her the answers to her frustration. Why were the men in her life such stubborn assholes all the time?

‘Give him a chance to learn, then. He has no reason to trust any of the other Agents he’s been training with. Give him a reason to trust you.’

‘What do you mean, no reason to trust them? They’re going to be his fellow Agents, Nat, mutual trust is key!’

‘If you were him, having done the things that he’s done, killed all those SHIELD agents, would you ever trust people like us not to be looking for revenge?’ Nat asked quietly.

Steve paused, hazelnut latte halfway to his lips. He frowned at the insinuation in Nat’s words.

‘You mean to say… the other Agents… I haven’t heard anything about any trouble?’ Steve frowned harder. Bucky Barnes was not technically responsible for all the people he’d killed while under Hydra’s control, the brainwashing and torture – and that Chair – had made him nauseatingly compliant. If the other Agents were victimising him for things he couldn’t help, Steve would have a thing or two to say about that. 

Natasha just smiled. ‘Steve… you are hopelessly naïve. That’s – that’s not a complaint, you understand. You see the best in people, you saw the best in me a long time ago when no one else would. But I’m afraid you’ve allowed your dislike of Barnes to only let you see the worst in him. It hasn’t been easy, starting over, and yes, some of our fellow Agents haven’t made things easy for him, but he’s persevered. He really wants to make amends, got this whole guilty-conscience thing that he just won’t let go of. You and he are more similar than you know, and I think that you could work well together, but you’ve got to be willing to give it a try.’

‘Nat –’

‘Listen, Rogers, you’re the leader and if you don’t want Barnes on your team, Hill will have him transferred. But don’t make the same assumptions about him as our co-workers have. Give him a chance.’

Steve felt a little guilty at that. Yeah, he didn’t like the guy, but was that really an excuse for not giving him the same second chance that he’d give any other SHIELD Agent? Or even the same first chance that he gave all him new team recruits? And if what Nat said about the other Agents was true… Steve might just have to keep a closer eye on Barnes from now on. For the sake of his team, of course. Couldn’t perform optimally if one member was getting bullied by the others and besides, Steve hated bullies. He sighed. Natasha was right, of course she was. Steve should have known not to question her. There was something about having had each other’s’ backs for so long, through the shitttiest missions, that made Steve trust Nat’s judgement implicitly, and if Nat thought Barnes was ready to be on his team, well, who was he to say any different? 

‘Alright, Nat. You’ve convinced me. I’ll give Barnes the same chance I give everyone. A probation period - three missions. If I don’t feel like he’s a good fit after that, will you accept my decision to have him transferred?’

‘A fair chance, Rogers. That’s all I’m asking.’

‘You’re coming out to bat pretty hard for this guy. Anything I should know about?’

‘Nothing like what you’re thinking, Rogers. Barnes needs a friend, needs more than one friend. Besides, I don’t think I’m his type.’

‘Not into redheads, huh?’

‘I think he prefers blondes.’ Natasha was doing that smile again, that little cryptic smile that Steve knew meant trouble, but for the life of him he couldn’t work out what was going on behind her large green eyes. But still, trouble. 

 

\------------ 

_‘Sergeant Barnes, you failed the mission. You deserve this…’ hissed a reptilian voice, softly whispering in the dark. Bucky thrashed at the straps holding him down but he couldn’t move, couldn’t speak as the headpiece lowered over his eyes and the white-hot pain started up again, delving into his brain over and over until he was a scooped-out husk with nothing left but the memory of pain…_

Bucky woke with a shout, vague shadows of the nightmare hanging around his head. His pager was beeping loudly on the table beside his bed, a physical reminder that he was in his room at SHIELD, the Chair was gone and he would never have to face it again. 

Pager, right. 

When Bucky’s pager went off at ass o’clock in the morning on a Sunday, he knew it had to be a mission. He rolled out of bed with a grunt, wondering what was so damn important that it couldn’t wait until a sensible hour. Zombie-like, he dressed in his tactical gear, filled a travel mug with strong black coffee, and headed out the door, all in less than ten minutes. 

On arrival in the briefing room, Bucky saw that he was not the first one there. Nat gave him an encouraging little smile, looking far too awake for this time in the morning. A rumpled-looking older man with some very ill-advised facial hair sat in the chair next to her, fiddling on his phone. When he saw Bucky, his eyes widened. 

‘Agent Barnes. I had no idea that the T-1000 was joining us for this one. Romanov, why is he here?’

Bucky opened his mouth to bite back at this fuckwit, when none other than Agent Rogers strode through the open door, cutting him off.

‘Tony, that’s enough. You know that Agent Barnes has joined Strike One, so try and act like a professional Agent, can’t you? He’s here to do the same job that we are.’

Wow, Rogers was grumpy in the mornings, grumpy and protective. As if noticing him for the first time, Rogers glared down at the coffee cup in Bucky’s hand.

‘And this isn’t a parent-teacher meeting, Agent Barnes. Either finish your coffee now or get rid of it. I don’t need you distracted, especially as this is your first mission with my team.’ Rogers turned away from them both and slumped down in a chair near the head of the table.

What. An. Asshole. Fuck Rogers and his shitty judgement of Bucky’s caffeine habits, he’d drink his coffee if he goddamn wanted to. Bucky took an extra-loud slurp of his drink, noting with a little vicious glee how Rogers’ stupidly-muscled shoulders tightened as he did. 

Agent Hill finally arrived, and their mission briefing started. Bucky looked around – half of Strike One wasn’t even here. The reason for that became apparent when Hill explained that what was needed was to infiltrate a building that Hydra had attempted to take over, free any hostages, and stop Hydra’s plans, whatever they were. Rogers and Nat would go in, scope out the building and attempt to free the hostages. Once they were out, they could pick off any Hydra assholes. Bucky would be set up with a rifle and snipe at any who got away. Tony’s role would be tech support and ballistics. The mission seemed straightforward, but Bucky knew that he had to perform perfectly to impress Rogers. It was his first mission, after all, even if he was being kept out of the main fighting, and all that hunger to prove himself, to get back at the people who hurt him, was resurfacing like smoke from a volcano. He could do this. He needed to do this. 

\--------------- 

Steve watched Barnes carefully as he set up his rifle. The man looked calm, on the surface at least. His hands weren’t shaking, he wasn’t nervously chattering or looking like he was about to throw up or any of the other traits that Steve associated with nervous newbies. He had to remind himself that Barnes was anything but a newbie. If anything, Barnes’ level of training and experience rivalled his own, and he could see the other man making Captain of his own team one day, if he’d only learn to play nicely with others. Despite knowing that his training was probably kicking in and making him relax, Steve couldn’t help himself. He knew he was expecting a lot from Barnes, but… this was that second chance Natasha had wanted for him. 

‘Keep alert, Barnes. There’s no coffee out here. I expect you to cover Agent Romanov and myself while we’re in your sights, and the hostages once they’re out. Got that?’

Barnes turned to look at him, definitely giving him the old stink-eye.

‘I got it just fine the first time, Agent Rogers.’ it looked like Barnes was having some trouble keeping his temper, which – Steve didn’t actually want to be the cause of his sniper support being distracted at all, so he held up a placating hand. 

‘Just making sure. Romanov, come on. We’re going in.’

Steve and Natasha moved quietly up the external fire escape to the roof, from where they would infiltrate the building. 

‘Pissing off your newest team member before the mission’s even started – nice going there, Steve.’ She murmured, turning off their open communication channel for a second so she could talk to Steve privately. 

‘I was just making sure he was prepared, Nat. He hasn’t been out in the field in months, not in a real mission setting, and given his history with Hydra, I thought he might need a little reassurance.’

‘Hate to break it to you, but if that was you being reassuring? You suck at it.’

Steve just glared, and opened up his communication channel, signalling that their conversation was officially over. Once they reached the roof, Steve hefted his shield down from its position in his harness, and did a sweep of the area. He felt too exposed, up here on the rooftop with no real escape routes, and the knowledge that Barnes was – should be – watching his every move down the scope of his rifle made him jumpy. He didn’t know why – he was used to having sniper support – but the fact that it was Barnes watching him was somehow… different. He shivered slightly at the thought of those grey eyes on him and moved noiselessly around the perimeter of the roof. Just as he checked behind the last vent, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and brought his shield up to brace for the impact…

A hard hiss zipped past his ear, and the Hydra agent who’d tried to get the jump on him slumped silently to the ground, a bullet in his temple. Steve whipped around, checking for Nat – but no, she was safe. The bullet had to have come from Barnes and his silent sniper rifle, then. Steve stared up to where he knew Barnes was, and couldn’t resist giving him a cheeky salute of thanks. He had to admit that Barnes’ reflexes were good. Damn good. 

‘Goddamn it, don’t fucking salute me, Rogers! You’ll give away my position!’ came Barnes’ angry whisper down the communication channel.

Steve thought he could hear the ghost of Natasha’s laughter from across the roof.

‘Thanks, Barnes.’ Steve whispered. There was no reply, so Steve crept forward and signalled to Nat that they should move inside the building. 

\------------ 

Bucky watched Rogers and Romanov pry open the rooftop access door and slip inside, alert for any kind of trouble. Once they were inside and away from the sights of his rifle, Bucky could safely change position without worry. He sat up, picked up his rifle and jogged down to another vantage point, away from where Rogers had saluted directly at him, like an idiot. Honestly, the man was meant to be a highly-trained SHIELD Agent, for fucks sake, didn’t he know the first thing about stealth? 

Safe in his new position, rifle once again cradled against his ribs, Bucky allowed himself to examine the tiny flare of panic that has jumped inside him when that Hydra asshole had tried to attack Rogers. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about Rogers’ safety, no – the thought made him nervous because… because he did care. About Rogers. Back when he was the Winter Soldier, Bucky had always known that his only loyalty was to Hydra and the mission, not to the other people in his team, so he’d felt nothing when they were taken down. This new want inside him, this protective urge to make sure that Nat and Rogers came out of this mission unscathed, this was a completely new feeling for him. He wasn’t sure he liked it. Nat was his friend, of course, and a terrifyingly competent Agent, but it was Rogers over whom he really worried. Just – perfectly natural to worry about other people in your team, he told himself. No other feelings behind it. It would be very bad form to catch a case of the feelings on his first mission out, and besides, it would look bad if he got his Captain killed, even if it was his own stupid fault for being the least stealthy Agent on the planet. 

‘Hostages are located. Tony, can you pinpoint our position and give us an exit route?’ came Rogers’ voice through the comms. 

 

‘Three flights down, south exit. No heat signatures – doesn’t look to be guarded.’ Tony’s reply was immediate, but hesitant at the same time. ‘In fact…’ Tony trailed off for a second. A lead weight settled in Bucky’s stomach. He had a feeling that something was about to go very, very wrong. No heat signatures guarding a main exit, only one guard on the roof and none on the fire escape… to Bucky’s suspicious brain, this was looking more and more like a trap. Shit. 

‘… in fact, Cap, I don’t see many heat signatures overall, now that I come to look at it.’

Fuck. 

‘So it’s a trap, then?’ asked Rogers.

‘Thank you, Captain Obvious.’ Tony was obviously just as done with this shit as Bucky was. Feeling the nasty weight in his stomach turn over and press against his ribs, Bucky resettled himself into a more natural position, training his rifle on the exit Tony had pointed out. He watched silently as it opened, and out came Romanov, leading four terrified-looking civilians. Out they came, the five of them. Bucky waited anxiously for Rogers to appear. He had to be bringing up the rear of the group – but, no, the door was closing softly behind them and Rogers was nowhere to be seen. 

‘Rogers? Come on asshole, where are you?’ he murmured. 

‘Just checking this place out some more, trying to get a read on what Hydra’s doing here and why there are so few of them. And – did you just call me an asshole?’ Steve’s voice came through the comms, reassuringly alive. Oops, Bucky must have spoken louder than he thought. 

‘Not an insult when you are one, Cap.’ Bucky snarked back, anything to keep Rogers talking, to keep on hearing his voice so that Bucky would know he was safe…

‘You know what, Barnes?’ Steve started, then – silence. 

‘What?’ prompted Bucky, almost not daring to breathe into the silence, before there was a burst of gunfire followed by the sounds of a scuffle over the comms line and an odd, electric humming that set Bucky’s teeth on edge, because he knew that sound from back when…

‘The Chair! Steve, get outta there. They’ve fired up the fucking chair, you need to move, now!’

‘I can – see that – for – ugh – my fucking self, thanks Barnes –’ came Steve’s grunting reply, sounding out of breath and like he was moving heavy objects. Another burst of fire. It sounded as though Rogers was outnumbered. Bucky looked down to where Nat was shepherding the hostages away from the perimeter and into a waiting SHIELD ambulance, covering their exit with her own firepower. Her mission was to protect the hostages, and she would do it well, but Bucky had a new mission. Protect Steve Rogers. 

‘Rogers, can you get back to the roof?’

‘I think so.’ Steve’s reply was terse, accompanied by the sounds of running. 

‘Just get to the roof and I can deal with whoever’s onto you.’ He practically shouted, adrenaline spiking in his gut. Bucky knew to ignore that adrenaline, ignore the muscles that were jumping under his skin telling him to run. He let a little of the Winter Soldier’s training and blind patience slip back into his brain. Bucky had spent months unlearning how to be the Winter Soldier, but he kind of liked the idea of using Hydra’s methods against them. 

The roof door burst open and out shot Rogers, pacing across the open space like a bullet. He was running in a straight line, the stupid fuck, as though four Hydra agents weren’t training their guns on him. Why wasn’t he hiding? Then Bucky realised that this reckless idiot was drawing them out so that he could get a better shot at them, Rogers using his own unshielded body as bait so that Bucky could finish them off. He watched through the scope as Rogers came to the end of the roof and turned, panting. He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. The Hydra goons edged closer to him, still with their guns trained on his vulnerable chest. Bucky felt a surge of protectiveness as he lined up the shot, and squeezed the trigger. One, two, three – damn, the fourth one had time to duck. He was getting sloppy. Before he could get a bead on where the last Hydra gunman was hidden, Rogers himself moved, a fluid graceful manoeuvre that brought his shield down as he ran straight towards the last gunman and joined in a fist fight. With the two of them so close, Bucky couldn’t take a clear shot for fear of hitting Rogers. He could only watch helplessly as they battled it out, noting the grace and ease with which Rogers moved his big body around, spinning, kicking, using his shield like it was an extension of himself. At last, Rogers managed to knock out the last Hydra asshole, cuff him, and head back inside. Bucky could breathe for the first time in what felt like hours. He was glad that Steve was – that Rogers had come out on top, but as soon as he saw him, Bucky was going to give that stupid reckless idiot a piece of his mind. 

\---------- 

Once the hostages had been seen to and the Hydra prisoner taken away, Steve felt like it was safe to remove his helmet. The Quinjet that was picking them up roared down behind him. Steve welcomed the breeze created by the blades – it could get pretty hot under his stealth suit. Relieved that the mission was over, he peeled off the top half of the suit, leaving him in just his compression top, and stretched out his limbs with a groan. 

Barnes was coming down the road towards him, rifle slung over one shoulder. In his all-black tac gear and with his ridiculous strutting walk, he looked like something out of one of Steve’s raunchiest fantasies – wait, what? No, that wasn’t it. He looked just like any other member of Steve’s professional team. There, that was more like it. Steve watched Barnes get closer to him. The guy had done his job well today. Maybe Steve could work with him, after all. Steve opened his mouth to extend the hand of friendship, but Barnes marched straight up to him, looking murderously angry, and started yelling. 

‘What was that, Steve? What do you think you were doing on that roof?’

Steve opened and closed his mouth a few times, gaping like a fish. All of his momentary goodwill towards his team mate vanished. 

‘Barnes, that is no way to address a team mate.’

‘Don’t play dumb with me, Rogers. You went in, alone, to a situation that you knew was a trap, got into trouble, and then – on the roof? I coulda shot those guys from anywhere, I didn’t need you to literally walk into the middle and surrender!’

‘Barnes! What the hell? Calm down. And don’t question my fucking decisions, what the shit is wrong with you?’

Barnes turned away, and Steve noted for the first time that he was… shaking?

‘Did you see it?’ Barnes asked after a long pause, his voice quiet and sad.

‘See what?’

‘The Chair, Rogers. The fucking Chair. I heard it – heard the noise – why is it here?’ Barnes was almost whispering, his body curled in on itself. Oh, this was bad. Steve would have preferred being yelled at some more, he could deal with that, but Barnes falling to pieces like this? That, he couldn’t handle. He had no idea how to comfort people, no idea what he should be doing. Was touch ok? Or would it set him off? Tentatively, Steve reached out and grabbed Barnes’ shoulder. His left one. Feeling the metal underneath his palm as a constant reminder of what Hydra had done to his team-mate, Steve felt immediately guilty about how aggressive he’d been. If Barnes was this affected by just the sound of the thing…   
Steve slowly drew Barnes in and placed a finger under his chin. He drew the slightly shorter man’s face up to look at him. 

‘Barnes. Look at me. Yes, I saw the chair. I understand now why you were so scared of it. They – when I walked back in there, it was like they’d planned it, they had that thing all fired up and ready for me.’ 

Steve paused, noting the sickening fear that was spreading across Barnes’ face. He hated that expression and right then, would have done anything to keep it away from that terrified face.

‘Tried to force me into it, probably would have succeeded too if you hadn’t told me to get to the roof. I was seriously outnumbered for a second there. It was a good call. You kept your head, got me out of trouble. Well done, Agent Barnes.’

Barnes just looked at him, a little of the fear and vulnerability replaced by… confusion? Curiosity? An unnamed emotion crossed his face, and Barnes replied softly,

‘Someone has to keep you out of trouble, Rogers.’

Steve smiled, and let go of Bucky’s shoulder. All at once he felt too vulnerable himself, like his was giving a piece of himself away. 

‘Call me Steve.’ Was all he said.

‘Well then – call me Bucky, Steve.’


	3. Steve and The Soldier Do Not Fight, Until They Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky and Steve's relationship is progressing from mutual mistrust into a solid friendship, until one bad mission threatens to send things spiralling out of control.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little warning: canon-typical violence, PTSD/ flashbacks, mentions of torture.

Bucky was silent in the jet on the way back to the Triskelion, apparently having exhausted his quota for language through yelling at Steve for being reckless. Steve watched Bucky’s blank face and limp movements in his seat with a worried expression. He was thinking about that damn Chair… the way that Hydra had had it there all fired up and ready to go, as though they were expecting him… Did Hydra set up the whole situation just to get some anonymous SHIELD agent into their clutches? Were they hoping that it was Bucky who would come barrelling into their trap, so that they could have their Winter Soldier back? Steve actually knew very little about Project Winter Soldier – only what he’d read in Bucky’s file, pieced together from his own fractured memories. It seemed like it was an old SHIELD project from World War Two – something about creating the ‘perfect soldier’ – but it had never got off the ground and had been stopped. Hydra had somehow got their hands on the idea and started it up again sometime in the early nineties, when Hydra stopped being a government peacekeeping department and went rogue, emerging as a major player in global terrorism. 

Hydra – Steve sighed. It was almost impossible to tell what they wanted, as their allegiance and agenda changed so often – just that wherever they showed up, there was always something bad happening. According to Bucky, Project Winter Soldier had been a desperate attempt to ensure loyalty in their followers using a combination of electro-shock therapy, psychological torture and cult-like brainwashing techniques. Steve shuddered to think of Bucky – of anyone, really – going through that, let alone for a decade as Bucky had. He’d actually been recruited to SHIELD as an eighteen-year old when Hydra kidnapped him from his house and twisted him for their own ends. Now, in a strangely cyclical way, Bucky was back where he should have been a long time ago, at SHIELD, although he’d arrived at this place through the worst kind of pain imaginable. SHIELD should have been able to protect him – should have found him when he was kidnapped for the first time. That had to have been around the time that Steve himself was getting into the military. He thought back to himself at age eighteen, how he’d wanted to fight the world and been scared of nothing because he’d had his squad around him. He contrasted that with how scared Bucky must have been as he realised that SHIELD wouldn’t come and save him. As Steve watched the back of Bucky’s head from his own seat, he vowed that as long as Bucky wanted to be part of his team, he’d do his damned hardest to make him feel safe this time. 

\----------- 

After that first mission, things changed for Steve. Yes, Bucky was an irritatingly attractive (what? no!) jerk most of the time, but he was also becoming one of the permanent members of Strike One, and also – could he say this? – a friend. Steve and Bucky spent the next few months clearing out Hydra nests, fighting tentacle monsters (jeez, that was a weird Thursday) and trying their best not to antagonise each other too much. Steve had recommended that Bucky be given permanent status as a member of Strike One, and he had soon become Steve’s first go-to choice for a partner. Bucky’s cool-headed calm balanced out Steve’s reckless energy, and the two of them found that they actually worked well together, when they could stop arguing long enough, that is. Steve relaxed around Bucky enough to join him and Nat for drinks a few times, and overall, it looked as though things were settling down between them. Of course, as with all good things that came into Steven Grant Rogers’ life, he eventually fucked things up.

 

It started in the gym. To Steve’s intense dismay, his stupid little crush on Bucky hadn’t gone away. In fact, the opposite had happened – his affection had bloomed into full-blown adoration. More crushing (hah! punny) than this was the knowledge that Bucky did not return his affections. How could he? Steve wasn’t even certain that he liked men, and in the back of his mind he still couldn’t get the suspicion of Bucky and Nat together out of his head. He resolved to deal with his crush in private, not to wreck the tentative friendship that he and Bucky had over a little infatuation, but it was damn hard. 

Training sessions were a particularly difficult time for Steve, because – well, to put it frankly, Bucky lifting weights was a thing of beauty to watch, Bucky determinedly whacking the punching-bag was an exercise in serious self-control, and as for Bucky sparring or wrestling – well, Steve had to leave the room for those particular sessions. 

Steve couldn’t watch. Bucky and Nat sparring together just left him too confused, the way the bodies moved over and under each other, clashing together then throwing each other apart, like ink blots that Steve’s brain was trying desperately not to make into (wildly imaginative… flexible…) pictures. No, he was better off not watching. Steve collected his towel and decided to leave his place lurking at the edge of the mats and head over to the weights. It was a rainy afternoon, and Strike One was booked in the gym for a team training session. Bucky and Nat sparred while Sam and Clint raced each other through a makeshift obstacle course, playing their own game of “The floor is lava!” Tony sat at the side of the gym, lazily pumping iron with one hand while chatting away to his phone, his JARVIS AI system occasionally talking back. Wanda threw knives at a target against the back wall, hitting the bull’s-eye time and time again. 

Steve was more than happy with how his team was training, so he felt justified in slinking off on his own until Nat and Bucky had finished their fluid dance on the sparring mat. As he walked away towards the weights, he heard someone call his name.

‘Steve! Hey, you busy?’ called out Bucky, jogging over to him from the mat.

‘I was just gonna lift some weights so no, not really.’

‘Wanna spar with me?’ Bucky asked hopefully.

Steve felt his face turn red. He had never sparred with Bucky – didn’t trust himself to spar with Bucky, not at all, although Bucky himself was growing more and more impatient to test his strength against him. It wasn’t only that Steve thought his inappropriate crush would let itself be known (read: he’d pop an awkward boner right there in the gym), it was also that Steve couldn’t help but flash back to the last time the two of them had fought. Back then, more than a year ago now, Coulson had been bleeding out behind him, and Bucky had still been The Winter Soldier. He’d - god, Steve had almost killed him. Or vice versa. He wasn’t sure which one would have been worse. As much as he’d tried to move on from that, Steve couldn’t bring himself to confront his memories of Bucky from that day, how he’d asked Steve about SHIELD’s Chair without even a flicker of understanding that it wasn’t the norm, how he’d assumed that SHIELD were going to hurt him but he’d surrendered to them anyway because anything was better than Hydra. 

 

‘Uh, I don’t feel in the mood for it at the moment, Buck. You go for another round with Nat though, you two make good partners.’

Bucky’s face dropped. 

‘Aww, come on Stevie, you never wanna partner me.’ Bucky pouted, turning his (adorable?) large, pleading grey eyes onto Steve. 

‘I just don’t feel like sparring at the moment, sorry.’ Steve tried to keep his voice in the range that a not-affected-by-those-eyes person’s voice would be. He wasn’t sure if he succeeded.  
Bucky just nodded dumbly, still fixing Steve with that (gorgeous?) (addicting?) intense fucking stare, and Steve stumbled to provide more of an explanation.

‘Kinda wanna lift heavy things today. Something solid, you know?’

‘I can spot you?’ the hope in Bucky’s voice was unbearable.

‘No. That’s uh – not what I meant. I just want – something I can take my feelings out on, wouldn’t feel great about doing that to someone who can feel the punches.’

Bucky scowled. ‘But I could –’ he started. 

‘No!’ Steve’s voice came out a little harsher than he’d meant it to, if the immediate stiffening of Bucky’s shoulders was anything to go by. Steve tried to tone down his breathing, which had inexplicably become heavy and uncontrollable.

Bucky dropped his head, finally giving Steve some relief from those eyes. 

‘I understand.’ He said, in a quiet, terrible voice that – was Steve imagining that? – had echoes of winter in the undertow, washing in like waves. That – that right there – that unthinking submission to authority – that was the reason that Steve could never hurt Bucky, even unintentionally, even during training. He just… couldn’t. 

Bucky said nothing more, just turned and walked straight out of the gym. Steve watched him go, feeling like he’d just missed the bottom stair and fallen further down than he anticipated, the nausea in his stomach uncoiling sloppily. 

\------------

That was the moment, right there. The moment it changed. He’d been doing so well, he’d managed not to freak everyone out and for the first time in so, so long it had felt like he had more friends than just Nat. 

But. 

Rogers couldn’t just let it go, could he? Didn’t want to spar with him, and Bucky knew why. The goddamn Winter Soldier was still making life hard for him, even after Bucky thought he’d put that part of himself to rest. Steve-Perfect-Rogers didn’t want to spar with the Winter Soldier, because that was all he saw when he looked at Bucky. Some days that was all Bucky saw when he looked at himself, but – no-one else had to know that. No, Steve was just a fucking shithead who thought he was better than Bucky. And to think, Bucky had almost considered him a friend. Stupid sappy idiot, that was what he was. Letting himself think he had a real friend. 

If pressed, Bucky couldn’t have said exactly why Steve’s refusal to spar with him had got to him so badly. Maybe it was because when he lost himself to training without the Soldier raising his head, he could almost forget what he was – and Steve’s refusal had made it all come back. Maybe it was because Bucky had really thought that Steve thought of him as part of Strike One and Steve’s refusal had signalled him as An Outsider again. Maybe it was just that for once he wanted to indulge his pathetic fantasies of being Just A Regular Guy, Sparring With His Friend Steve… Bucky sighed to himself in the locker room, and had just decided to go find something else on which to take his frustration out, when his mission-alert pager beeped.  
\--------------------  
\--------------------

The mission had gone to shit. Strike One had been called in to deal with what should have been an easy threat, a solitary hacker who shouldn’t have been able to get into the Pentagon secure data base. Unfortunately, their intelligence had been bad, and what they’d thought had been a solitary hacker had turned out to be an anything-but-solitary group of armed Hydra terrorists holed up in a well-defended apartment trying to access nuclear launch codes. The fight had been messy, and long, and Steve had utterly failed to keep his team on task when frustration at their own unpreparedness spilled over into temper explosions. By the time they got back to the Triskelion, Bucky had yelled at four separate members of his team, got yelled at by Nat in return, and told to go away so that everyone else could ache in peace without him there trying to make things worse. Over the past month, Bucky had got used to long missions, but something about the slowly-darkening atmosphere that had surrounded the team lately – or was that just him and Steve? – had put him more on edge than usual. The fact that their battle plan had been a failure and Nat had been injured and he’d got yelled at by both Steve and an injured Nat only made Bucky’s post-mission blues worse. All Bucky wanted to do was hit the damn showers, have a damn drink, then get into his damn bed and shut out the world. 

Sometimes, only a very occasional sometimes these days, mostly only when he was exhausted, Bucky had trouble distinguishing between Hydra and SHIELD, between orders shouted in his face and whispered through communication channels, between loyal drones who’d kill him at the drop of a hat and team-mates who would never fully accept him. Either way, he was isolated in a place where he could never quite relax around other people. This was one of those times. He was antsy and on-edge, couldn’t turn off the mission-switch in his brain that screamed at him that he was unsafe, that he needed to find weapons and barricade himself somewhere defensible. In practice, this meant that he couldn’t sleep, alcohol or no. In the post-mission funk of stress, exhaustion and soreness, those sleeping Winter Soldier memories slumbered a little closer to the surface of his conscious mind, and, terrifyingly, he felt that the cold pull of the Soldier’s patience might have been the only thing keeping him focussed when missions became long and messy. The Soldier was just too light a sleeper to ever not be a threat, and the effort of keeping him asleep only made Bucky’s exhaustion worse.

At 3 am, after hours of fidgeting and turning in his bed, Bucky gave up trying. He dressed warmly and went into one of the common areas on the residential floor, thinking to just get himself a snack and a cup of hot tea, and watch the city in blissful solitude. Instead, Bucky was put out to find the TV on with the volume turned down low in the common area, and none other than Steve Rogers sprawled out on a sofa in the semi-darkness. He didn’t appear to be actually watching what was on the screen though, Steve sat with his head in his hands, fingers digging into his scalp. He didn’t appear to have heard Bucky come in, and Bucky felt as though he were intruding on a private moment. Damn Steve! Couldn’t he have his private moments somewhere more… well, more private? Why did he have to go Displaying Emotions in the common areas where any unsuspecting insomniac could walk in on him? Bucky was busy thinking grumpy thoughts at Steve when the other man must have suddenly become aware of Bucky’s presence, because he startled, jumped about a foot into the air off the couch and whirled to face Bucky, hands coming up in a defensive posture. Bucky held up his hands placatingly in response. 

‘Rogers! Relax, Steve it’s just me!’

‘Barnes? What the fuck are you doing, sneaking up on me like that? You almost gave me a fucking heart attack!’

Anger flared up inside Bucky, a sudden red-hot flame of shame and rage. He hadn’t been sneaking, he didn’t sneak. The Winter Soldier snuck up on unsuspecting people – Bucky Barnes did not. 

‘I did not sneak up on you, you idiot, didn’t you hear me coming? And I didn’t know the Great Captain Rogers scared so easily!’

‘You watch your tone, Barnes, I’m still your commanding officer and you are dangerously close to crossing the line.’

The contrast between Steve’s earlier vulnerability and his present guardedness made something in Bucky ache for its’ loss. He wanted to say something, wanted to reach out to Steve, but his nerve failed him. He reminded himself that Steve probably still saw him as the Winter Soldier, could never see him as anything else, and certainly wouldn’t want to have a sit-down conversation about his feelings, for fucks sake. In any case, his anger was still bubbling under the surface and he, unlike the Winter Soldier, could not just remain an emotionless robot in every situation. He just wanted Steve to shut up and realise that he wasn’t the damn Winter Soldier, he wasn’t sneaking up on Steve for any nefarious purpose, he wasn’t going to betray SHIELD the moment Hydra beckoned him, he was just trying to make amends for fucks sake! Why didn’t anyone see that? He didn’t say all that to Steve, of course, because if there’s one thing Bucky Barnes was not, it was being good at vocalising his emotions. Instead, in a move that he immediately regretted, Bucky said the most hurtful thing he could think of in that situation.

‘Not much of a commander though, are you? Look at you. I mean, take off that uniform and what are you? You’re not stealthy, you don’t ever have a plan, you rely on dumb luck and sheer strength to get you out of bad situations, you can’t control you team or even your own temper, and you can’t even deal with me sneaking up on you before you fly off the handle! I don’t know why I wanted to be on your stupid Strike team in the first place!’ 

Bucky was yelling full-on by the end of that speech, dashing angry tears from his eyes. He was so far beyond caring that Rogers had seen him cry, his sheer frustration boiling over and filling every nerve ending with a buzzing fury that overwhelmed him and in his anger, he blurred the boundaries of what was SHIELD and what was Hydra. He had just yelled at his Handler – he had been non-compliant. Unthinkingly, he tensed, waiting for the harsh, impersonal hands that would drag him back to the Chair. 

\---------

Steve, although furious beyond words at Bucky’s outrage, could immediately sense when something was wrong with the other man. In an instant, Bucky had gone from yelling aggressively to stepping back and almost cowering away from him, his breaths uneven and his eyes roving frantically around the room as if searching for something. Steve reached out to Bucky with the intention of trying to ground him, but the second his hand touched Bucky’s shoulder, he found that hand grabbed by Bucky’s metal arm and used as leverage to throw him bodily over Bucky’s hip and into the floor. Steve looked up from where he’d landed, at Bucky’s terrified face that only now seemed to be registering what was going on. 

\--------- 

In his confusion, anger and exhaustion, some long-buried shard of the Winter Soldier had broken free. As soon as he felt Hydra’s hands on him, come to force him back into the Chair, the Winter Soldier reacted, instinct taking over and pushing the other person away. It was only once he heard the soft “oof” of a winded set of lungs hitting the floor that the Winter Soldier fog started to lift, and Bucky Barnes looked at what he’d done. He’d - he’d attacked his team leader. He’d attacked Steve, who was lying on the floor looking up at him with a mixture of anger and betrayal that made Bucky’s stomach turn over. He’d failed, he was weak, he’d allowed the Winter Soldier to take over at the slightest sign of panic. This was exactly what all his SHIELD rehabilitation had been designed to prevent, but he was obviously such a broken thing that all the effort had gone to waste and now he’d hurt someone. Bucky’s heart filled with terror, his stomach shifted so that he thought he might throw up, he had to get out of here, get anywhere else but here. Without another word, Bucky turned and ran back into his bedroom, locking the door and barricading himself in so that no-one, not Hydra, not SHIELD, not Steve Rogers, could take him in for punishment and conditioning. In the lonely dark of his room, Bucky Barnes wrapped his arms around himself and sobbed.


	4. The Chair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Bucky's relationship appears to be damaged beyond repair, but where there if hope and reconciliation, friendship starts to bloom. Until, that it, everything goes to hell in a handbasket...

Steve watched as realisation flooded back to Bucky’s face, and it drained of all colour. The man looked terrified out of his wits, staring down at Steve and hyperventilating wildly. He gave Steve one last wild-eyed look and bolted out of the room. Steve let him go, sitting up and rubbing his backside where he’d landed. Damn it, he should have known better than to touch someone without warning when they were clearly having some kind of episode. Should have known better than to let himself get taken down, too. But that was an argument he could have with himself another day. Right now he had to solve the immediate problem in front of him – Bucky. Was Bucky still a danger to other people? To himself, even? 

‘Where would Bucky go when he needs to hide?’ he thought aloud. Something in him wanted to resolve this situation himself – Bucky’s digs at him for not being a good team leader had stuck under his skin – but, he admitted, he wasn’t above calling in Natasha if the situation went south a second time. Sighing loudly and trying not to rub at his bruised backside any more than he had to, Steve went looking for Bucky. 

Steve was surprised beyond belief to find that Bucky was back in his room, if the muffled sobs coming from behind his door were any indication. Who would he find behind that door? The fact that Bucky had come back here could mean that he was still Bucky in his head, but could Steve take that chance? Preparing himself to confront the Winter Soldier, Steve knocked lightly on the door to Bucky’s room.   
\---------------------

Bucky heard the – knocking? That wasn’t right. Hydra didn’t knock. If that wasn’t Hydra then he wasn’t the Soldier. He stared at the door, sniffling, unwilling to move. If he was crying then he wasn’t the Soldier. If he wasn’t the Soldier, then – 

‘Go away.’ Bucky called out, his voice thick with tears, because he could say that now, because he wasn’t the goddamn Soldier. 

‘Barnes? It’s Steve. Open the door. That’s an order, Agent.’

‘Rogers? – No.’

‘Barnes – Bucky? Open the door.’

‘I said, no.’

Bucky heard a sigh of frustration coming through the door. ‘Bucky. Open this door – please?’

Bucky’s resolve wavered. He was in so much trouble already, what more could happen to him? On the other hand, would refusing to submit to the Chair be the thing that got him fired from SHIELD?

No, that wasn’t right. SHIELD didn’t have a Chair, did they? Didn’t have impersonal rooms where people could scream and be ignored. Or at least they told him they didn’t. Perhaps they’d been hiding them from him until now, giving him the illusion of being safe while preparing to hurt him the second he messed up? Bucky thought of Nat and – and of Rogers. Of Steve. In the few missions they’d gone on together, he’d come to respect him, even like him. His pathetic daydreams about waking up safe in Steve’s arms had refused to go away – and Bucky didn’t think that Steve Rogers would take him to the Chair.

Fighting the terror that dragged at his limbs, Bucky stood up and strode over to the door. Reluctantly, he opened it and stared down at Steve’s feet, not daring to meet his eye. 

Steve did not react as expected. Instead of punishing hauling him out of there and punishing him, instead of insisting that he submit to imprisonment and firing him from the team and casting him out of SHIELD and leaving him to starve and die in a ditch somewhere – Steve just stood there, not moving, for a long, silent, uncomfortable moment. Finally, he spoke, and Bucky was shocked at the kindness in his voice. 

‘Bucky? Thank you for opening the door. Can I – no, that’s – can you come out? Please? Come and sit down?’

That, more than anything, convinced Bucky that Steve was not Hydra, and he was not the Soldier, and he was not going to be left for dead in a ditch somewhere. Bucky shuffled out of his room and stared at Steve, not quite knowing what to do. Steve’s face was painfully neutral, so blank that it almost made Bucky afraid again. Why couldn’t Steve just get angry at him like a normal person?

‘Come on, Buck. Sit down.’ Steve took his arm gently and guided him back into the common area, where he resolutely did not look at the corner where he’d thrown Steve – no. Steve made him sit on the couch, then sat down himself next to him, but jumped up almost immediately with an instruction to stay still. He banged around the kitchen and quickly returned with a glass of water and a protein bar, which he held out to Bucky. Bucky accepted them, but held the protein bar loosely in his lap without even looking at it. He did take a few sips of the water though, to try and delay the moment when he’d have to look up at Steve. When he did, Steve’s blue-eyed gaze caught him and held him, an inescapable as a tractor beam. Steve hesitated for a moment.

‘I don’t exactly know how to do this, what to say, I’m – not really good at the talking thing. But, I gotta ask, as your… as your friend, not as your commanding officer or any shit like that… are you ok?’

Bucky barked out a laugh. That was the most asinine question he’d ever been asked, the asshole wasn’t kidding when he said he wasn’t good at this. Strangely though, that made Bucky feel a little less on edge, to have Steve messing up alongside him. Besides, Steve had called him _friend_.

‘Of course I’m not ok Steve, I just threw you into a wall then burst into tears like an eleven year old girl for fucks sake.’

‘Buck. I mean it.’

‘Yeah, and so do I, Steve. Of course I’m not fucking ok. I guess the mission today got to me, I was… exhausted, and… it’s so hard to keep it all down, sometimes.’

‘Keep what down?’

‘… the Soldier. He’s always there. Never really went away, just… sleeping in my brain.’

Steve was silent for a long moment, gazing at Bucky in gently appraising manner. ‘Bucky, that’s – I know I said that I’m not very good at the whole talking thing, but I do know that you don’t have to keep it all inside all the time.’

‘I do. Clearly, I do. You’ve just gotten an up-close viewing of what happens when I let him out. I am so, so sorry for that, by the way. I got confused, and – and…’

‘It’s ok.’ Bucky couldn’t stand the gentleness in Steve’s tone. Steve clearly didn’t understand anything about him.

‘No!’ Bucky’s outburst startled Steve, whose eyebrows shot up into his hairline and who twitched backwards, away from Bucky. ‘It’s not ok! I thought I was done with him! I thought that when I joined SHIELD again that I might get a fresh start, or some bullshit like that. Really thought I could fucking do it, too. Turns out no, I’m just as much of a fuck-up as I was when I first left Hydra. I hurt you, Steve. I hurt you and that’s not ok. Who am I gonna hurt next? I can’t - ’ 

Bucky had to stop, his throat all of a sudden choked with thick silent sobs. He couldn’t follow the flash of emotions that seemed to chase each other across Steve’s face. Confusion – pity – anger – disbelief – what did that all mean?

‘Do you remember that I was there on the day that you surrendered?’ Steve finally asked. 

‘Not likely to forget that.’

‘You asked me where SHIELD kept their Chair. Didn’t believe me when I said that we didn’t have one. You were very rude, as I recall.’

Bucky smiled, then grimaced because what was this, Badly-Timed-Nostalgia-Hour? 

‘I remember thinking how brave you were, you – you thought that SHIELD would subject you to more of the same punishment that Hydra had – but you still walked into the Quinjet and came with us. You made that choice, not the Soldier, and that was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen you do. I have never thought that you were a fuck-up for anything that you have done since then, and I don’t think you’re a fuck-up now. You had a bad night – we all have those. Goes with the job. I should have been more careful about approaching you when I could see that something wasn’t right with you. I’m sorry.’

‘No, Steve, this isn’t your fault.’

‘And it’s not yours either!’ Steve moved forward towards Bucky again so that they were sharing one side of the couch and their arms were almost touching. The look in his eyes was almost too much for Bucky to bear – warm and righteous and protective all blazing out at once. Bucky had to look away so that he couldn’t see Steve’s stupid eyes or his stupid face. He heard Steve’s sigh though, felt it like a cool ocean breeze on his overheated skin. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Steve’s right hand twitch and move, come up between them as if he wanted to reach for Bucky, but then Steve paused and seemed to think better of it. He replaced the hand where it had been, by his side. 

‘Look, I’m not going to mention this to anyone, not if you don’t want me to. I’m still speaking as your friend here, remember, not your C-O, and as your friend, I just want to know that you’re going to be ok.’

‘What? But – I hurt you! You should be running to Fury with this right now! Aren’t you worried about having The Winter Soldier on your team?’

‘Do you think I should do that? And – I don’t have The Winter Solider on my team, I have you on my team. You’re not him, not to me at least.’

‘You’re my Team Leader, Steve. You should do whatever’s best for the team.’

‘What’s best for the – Bucky, right now I’m not thinking about what’s best for the team. I’m thinking about what’s best for you.’

‘But why? You don’t even – no, you know what? Nevermind. You don’t want to fire me, I don’t know why I’m protesting this. But just for the record, I think you’re an idiot.’

‘Fine, if it makes you feel any better – I’ll tell you that, thinking as your Team Leader, what’s best for the team is that all of the team members are performing to a high standard and are able to complete their duties without distraction. That means making sure that my team members feel safe, not subjecting them to ridiculous internal inquiries, certainly not arresting them, just because they have one bad night. Sound fair?’

‘That’s so dumb… you’re really not going to say anything to anyone?’

‘Not if you don’t want me to.’

‘If you’re lying to me…’

‘I wouldn’t lie about this. If I say I won’t tell anyone, it means I won’t tell anyone.’

‘In that case… Please don’t.’

‘I won’t. Matter settled. Now – you didn’t answer my other question. Where are you right now? Do I need to call Doctor Banner for you?’

‘No, I’m fine. Well ok, I’m not… not fine right this moment, but I will be… it’s ok, Steve.’

Bucky caught the last second of Steve’s answering smile when he turned his head back towards the other man. Even without having to meet Steve’s eye, Bucky could feel the understanding that passed between them in that moment, and all that it meant. Steve had called himself _friend,_ had put aside their history and their ranks and had addressed him as an equal, something that no SHIELD Agent, with the exception of Natasha, had done until now. Bucky had shown the coldest part of himself to Steve, and Steve hadn’t run away, had merely answered with enough warmth of his own to blow the snowdrifts of winter away from Bucky’s door. He found a fixed point in the tattered edge of the couch, focussing in on the details of the upholstery until the shifting, tugging feeling in his gut had passed and he could look at Steve again. Although he searched hard for any trace of pity or falsehood in Steve’s face, he found none. Only a gentleness and understanding that made him feel weak. 

Steve _saw_ him. Steve saw _him_ , not the Soldier. The list of people who did that these days was small enough to count on one hand and sometimes didn’t even include himself. Bucky smiled, half to himself, and allowed himself to relax back onto the couch. 

\---------------------

Steve watched Bucky sink backwards onto the couch and knew that the subject was closed for discussion, at least for tonight. There was a lingering thought in his mind that he ought to press further, ask more questions to make sure that Bucky wasn’t a danger to anyone else, but – no. He had to show that he trusted Bucky’s judgement of his own mental state, which he did, for the most part. Steve reached for the TV remote. 

‘I don’t know about you, but I’m not likely to sleep tonight.’

Bucky made a wordless, distressed sound at that, and Steve hastened to correct himself. 

‘Not because of you! I mean – I never really sleep, after a mission. Can’t seem to shake ‘em off that easily anymore.’ 

‘Me neither. Never have. It’s not as bad now as it was when I worked for Hydra, but – I still get…’

‘Flashbacks? Nightmares?’

‘That kind of thing, yeah. More about the mission than Hydra these days, but… still.’

‘Well, I think I’m just gonna watch some TV… you’re welcome to join me? If you want?’

Bucky tilted his head to one side and stared at him suspiciously in reply. 

‘You don’t have to do that, Rogers.’

Oh shit, they were back to surnames. ‘Do what?’ Steve asked mildly.

‘Pity me. Baby me. Treat me like I’m going to snap and go into an insane murderous rage at any moment. Take your pick – that’s what everyone else does. I don’t need you to do it too.’

Steve kept on flicking through channels, not looking at Bucky. 

‘I don’t – pity you, I mean. I don’t. I – you’re not the only one who gets those nightmares.’ Steve hung a smile on his face that was for nothing more than a show, as though someone had pegged the corners of his mouth onto a washing-line and hoisted them upwards, his face hanging down between them. It wasn’t a Team-Leader kind of smile, nor even an I-swear-I’m-ok kind of smile. It was a so-exhausted-I-can’t-do-anything-else kind of smile, joyless and bitter and just a little hard around the edges. It was also the kind of smile that he would never usually show anyone but his closest friends, knowing that they wouldn’t mis-interpret it. 

Bucky stared at him wordlessly, taking in the smile and all that it meant without judgement. If that smile could communicate even a fraction of everything that Steve usually kept hidden, if he could show Bucky that he wasn’t alone in his flashbacks and his sleeplessness and his terror, then it was worth showing Bucky that part of himself. Bucky had given Steve a look at an incredibly vulnerable part of his mind, now Steve could give Bucky the same.   
After a moment of wariness, the corners of Bucky’s mouth turned upwards in a tiny, tentative smile of his own. Maybe in their new, shifting friendship, smiling was allowed. Steve let himself sink back into the couch cushions next to Bucky but not touching, and together they tuned into late-night cooking shows in silence. 

\---------------

Bucky woke up on the couch the next morning with a bad taste in his mouth and something sharp pressing into his side. He couldn’t even remember falling asleep last night. The events of the previous night scrolled through his brain in the moments before the rest of his body caught up with them, his mind feeling detached and hazy. As the rest of his body came online, he opened his eyes to see that Steve had fallen asleep right next to him, sprawled out on the cushions so that he took up nearly three quarters of the space. The sharp something that was pressing into his side was Steve’s elbow, which was tucked under Steve’s head and had jabbed Bucky in his slumped-over sleeping position. Steve looked peaceful and graceless and goddamn beautiful like this, so much so that Bucky’s mind supplied him images of the two of them waking up together in the same bed, Bucky turning over to watch Steve’s open, sleeping face before burrowing deeply under the covers and into his arms. In his mind, Steve rolled over and tugged Bucky against himself, circling those huge arms around him and keeping him there, safe and protected. 

Ah, but those dreams were pathetic, weren’t they? His fantasy land wasn’t full of beautiful men and athletic sex or anything so exciting, merely the completely unobtainable and utterly fulfilling pleasure of waking up in the arms of someone who loved him, happy and domestic and about as far away from his current life as it was possible to get. 

Bucky shook himself awake and silently rose from the couch. Steve didn’t stir – he must have crashed out hard at some point during the night. He hadn’t even turned the TV off, the remote still resting on his chest. Bucky took it, careful not to let his fingers touch Steve’s body at all, and muted the volume. Then he rearranged Steve so that he was in a more comfortable-looking position and gently placed a cushion under the other mans’ head. Shaking his own head at his idiocy, Bucky headed out to take a shower and straighten up his room. 

\----------------

 

Steve whistled to himself as he strode down a corridor in the Triskelion towards the locker room ready for a morning workout, Natasha at his side. Natasha was one of Steve’s closest friends at SHIELD. She’d been his ally and team-member through some of his worst missions, and there were almost no secrets between the two of them. Or at least, Steve was only keeping one big secret from Nat. He got the feeling that she was keeping more than that from him, but – that was her prerogative. The last thing Steve would ever do was pry into someone’s private life where he was not wanted. 

‘So, Steve, got any plans for this weekend?’

‘Eh, the usual. Take my uniform out for a drive, maybe test out some new gear. Slip over the border for some less-than-legal fun. You know, living the high life.’

‘You mean you’re going on another mission this weekend.’

‘Just like any other weekend for me, Nat.’

‘You know Steve, you don’t have to be afraid of a little time to yourself. I bet there’s plenty of things you could do around here if you ever got it into your head to relax. Plenty of women – and men – who’d love to have a drink with you, perhaps go to dinner?’

‘Are you suggesting I go on a date? Woah there Nat, I don’t think SHIELD had a Risk Assessment Form for that. I’ll take the illegal mission any day. Besides, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but people aren’t exactly queuing up to date someone who might get called away at any moment.’

‘You’re selling yourself short there, Steve. I know many people who would love to have a drink with you. How about Claire, you know – the cute nurse from the medical room? Or Laura, from accounts?’

‘I don’t even know these people, Nat. I can’t just ask them to go for a drink with me out of the blue like that. Besides, if I were to ask someone out, not that I’ve got anyone in mind but I’m just sayin’, you know, _if_ , I’d at least want someone with shared life experience. That’s kinda hard to find in the job we do.’

‘Someone from the Strike Teams then. How about Rumlow?’

‘Rumlow?? Are you serious? The guy chews with his mouth open, it could never work between us!’

‘How about Sharon?’

‘Her hair’s too bouncy.’

‘Sam?’

‘He smiles too much.’

‘I’m starting to think that you’re just making things up now to be contrary, Steve.’

‘Me? Contrary? Never.’ Steve grasped his hands to his chest in a mock-outraged gesture and screwed up his face in disgust. 

‘Watch it, Rogers. One day the wind’ll change and you’ll stick like that.’

‘Hmm, there may be some tactical advantage to that, you never know.’

‘Jesus Steve, will you give yourself a break from work every once in a while?’

‘Look, Nat, I appreciate your efforts to get me out in the world, but I’m fine just as I am. I know what people see when they look at me. They see “Captain Rogers, SHIELD Agent” but not a lot of people actually know anything about me.’ 

‘That’s what dating is for, Steve. That’s how you get to know people. It’s how you let other people get to know you.’

Steve and Natasha turned into the large SHIELD gym. The rest of Strike One were already there, warming up on the mats. Bucky, Tony, Sam, Clint and Wanda were the closest thing that Steve had to a family these days. And Nat, of course, playing the part of Annoying Little Sister, although Steve would never say that to her face. 

Steve watched Bucky as he stretched out his back at the far side of the room, deep in conversation with Clint. It had been six weeks since The Winter Solider Incident and although initially afterwards, Bucky had been withdrawn and uncomfortable around him, Steve had made it his mission to see Bucky finally relax and own his place in Steve’s team. Bucky’s new friendship with Steve was becoming the high point of his job, even if Bucky was a surly asshole most of the time. After so long holding back, now it seemed like Steve and Bucky could finally relax around each other. The lingering mistrust and coldness that had persevered between them until now was completely gone. Something about talking the other person down from a PTSD-induced flashback destroyed whatever barriers there had been between them – and really, Steve couldn’t even remember why it was that he’d disliked Bucky in the first place. Not only were they friends, but as the months wore on, Steve found that Bucky had become Steve’s first choice pick for many of his Strike Team’s missions, even those that didn’t strictly require a sniper, because he was one of the most competent and reliable Agents Steve had ever worked with. 

Right now, Bucky was giving Clint his trademark grumpy-cat look as Clint bounced around him and herded him towards the sparring mats. Clint was unusually energetic for first thing in the morning. There must have been some turbo-powered coffee in the canteen at breakfast today, thought Steve as he watched them. Bucky shook his hair back and secured it into a small bun at the back of his head. The movements of his hand were precise and deft; Steve watched them with interest, vaguely thinking of how he could capture that movement with pencil and paper. 

‘Steve? Earth to Steve?’

‘Hmm? Sorry, Nat, did you say something?’

‘I was going to suggest that you ask Dottie out for a drink, but I’ve changed my mind. I think you should ask James out instead.’

Steve choked on his next breath.

‘What? Bucky? Wh – why would I do that?’

‘Ooooh Steve, I didn’t realise – you’ve got it bad for him, haven’t you?’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Because I know you, Rogers, and I know that look.’

‘What look? There was no look.’

‘That look you were just giving James. Don’t deny it – that was a Look, capital L and everything.’

‘I deny that. I deny that capital L, I deny that _everything_.’

‘I can’t believe I never noticed this before.’

‘There’s nothing to notice!’ Steve was getting exasperated – did Nat think that he was an idiot? Bucky would never look twice at him, and he certainly hadn’t thought of Bucky in that way – or, well, ok there _was_ that totally inappropriate crush he’d had on Bucky when he first joined Steve’s team, sure, but he was over that now – ok, and Bucky _was_ good-looking, he could admit that, yeah, from a totally objective standpoint – but Steve was completely, one-hundred-percent over that little crush by now. Definitely. At least eight-two percent over it, at least... Oh who was he kidding? He was not over his crush at all. If anything, he realised, he was falling deeper and deeper in – in crush? yeah that sounded about right, in crush – with Bucky. 

‘Oh Steve. Does Bucky know how you feel?’

‘I don’t want to talk about this. I’m not going to ask Bucky out for a drink and that’s final.’ Steve headed off to warm up without another word. No-one had to know that he watched Bucky sparring with Clint with greater and greater apprehension as he allowed himself to realise the full depths of his crush for the first time. Bucky was gruff and sullen and he drank too much coffee and he used up all the hot water taking extra-long showers. He was competent and capable and witty and adorably grumpy, and Steve was not strong enough to resist the pull of a man who handled a rifle the way Bucky did. He watched Bucky sparring and he knew right then, with the iron certainty that told him he was doing the right thing, and that he could never act on his crush. Bucky could never know about this, because Steve was Bucky’s team leader and it would be an unforgivable abuse of his position to get involved with anyone on his team. Besides, there was no way that Bucky returned his feelings. Steve Rogers was not a stupid man by any stretch of the imagination. He knew that what Bucky needed from him was friendship. Bucky probably needed friendship from just about anyone he could get, right now. Bucky may have been a SHIELD Agent but he was also a reformed assassin who was only just learning to let people into his life again. Bucky needed Steve to be a support, a friend, and he couldn’t do that if he had any ulterior motives. The conclusion was logical – Steve would put his feelings for Bucky into the deepest, most forgotten cabinet his mind could conjure, lock the door and throw away the key. Quite simply, he would get over him and move on. It was just that simple. 

 

\--------------------

Bucky felt Steve watching him from the edge of the training area. His team leader still refused to spar with Bucky, and that still made him uneasy.. Bucky watched Steve watch him out of the corner of his eye as he kept most of his mind on Clint. Why was Steve always watching him? Was he still, even after all his assurances to the contrary, waiting for Bucky to slip up again and hurt someone? That stung. Bucky knew this his feelings towards Steve were complicated, maybe even so tangled that he would never be able to tease them apart. There was the strand of him that hated Steve for being there to see Bucky surrendering to SHIELD, hated him having seen his weakness and fear, a reminder that Steve knew what he was, better than anyone else did. There was also the strand that owed loyalty to Steve – the loyalty of an Agent to his Strike Leader, and that one was wound tightly around the trust he placed in Steve as a leader… and _that_ whole double-strand was fused with how he felt about Steve as a friend – the loyalty and trust and strange jumpiness he felt whenever he and Steve interacted outside of missions. There was something uncomfortably open about Steve having seen him at the lowest point he’d had for months, but at the same time, Steve hadn’t reacted how he’d expected anyone to react. He doubted if even Natasha would have talked him down from a panic attack, sat him down, given him food and water and held him as Steve had. But the fact remained – Steve had been the one to calm Bucky down, had put aside his own pain, because it must have been painful to be thrown into a wall by the Winter Soldier, in favour of late-night cooking shows and falling asleep on couches next to someone who not six months before had been trying to kill him. It was a heady thought, that amount of trust coming from someone he… what? Admired – liked – …Liked? – as much as he – liked – Steve. He was very careful in his mind with that word, handling it gently as though it might suddenly turn around and bite him. 

And Steve was still watching him. Bucky gave a little wave and a grin, just enough to let Steve know that he’d seen him watching, and went back to focussing on Clint’s ridiculous aerial moves. 

Across the room, too far away for Bucky to see, Steve blushed and turned around too quickly to be casual, trying to settle his suddenly-jumping heart. 

\--------------

Predictably, of course, things could only be good for so long before they inevitably turned to shit. Four weeks later, in the middle of what should have been an innocent track-and-tag mission, Steve felt Bucky tense up behind him and whisper to himself, ‘Shit.’

They were standing huddled together in a crag on the side of a snowy mountain somewhere in the Alps. It might have been Italy, might have been Switzerland – Steve wasn’t exactly sure. But it was cold and windy, and Bucky had been sitting still and silent for hours up until now, night-vision goggles in hand. He was waiting for the appearance of a certain train, which was carrying a certain crate, inside of which was an object that SHIELD was very keen to get their hands on. Steve had been waiting for Bucky to spot the train, preparing for a short jump down onto it where he would break into the carriage, place a tracker on the crate in question, and be out of there before anyone knew he’d even been in. Steve hadn’t been told what was in the crate, hadn’t needed to know up until now, but that sharp little exhale of profanity from the man beside him brought Steve to sudden, painful awareness.

‘What is it?’

Bucky’s face as he turned to Steve was equal parts angry and terrified.

‘The train. There.’ He pointed out a distant moving squiggle, a black slug against the white landscape.

‘Target in sight.’ Steve murmured into his communication device, barely paying attention to Maria Hill’s response. ‘What’s wrong?’

Bucky eyed Steve for a moment before apparently deciding to furnish him with the truth.

‘Zola. Is there. On the train. From Hydra.’

‘How can you tell?’

‘He’s having dinner. In the window, fourth carriage back.’

‘You think he’s a threat?’ Steve moved a little closer to Bucky as though he could protect him from sheer proximity. 

‘Not to me. Not anymore. If he’s here, however, it means…’ Bucky trailed off, eyes flicking back to the rapidly approaching train. Steve needed to move into position right now but he was fixed onto Bucky’s indecipherable gaze as he watched Bucky watch the train.

‘Means what? Buck?’ Steve prompted. 

Bucky jerked his gaze back to Steve. ‘Means the Chair is here. Zola – he handles the Chair – he made it, he was the one who – he was the main person who –’ Steve watched Bucky’s face grow pale and distant as thoughts of Zola crept back into his mind, and Steve remembered what Bucky had said about the Winter Soldier sleeping inside his brain. Well, he wouldn’t let anything happen to Bucky again, not if he could help it. 

‘Fuck. Fuck – ok, ok – let me get Maria on the line, she can give us more info – we don’t even know that it’s really there, Zola could just be travelling without it – just let me –’

‘No. Steve. We have to call this off. If Zola’s here, the Chair is definitely here. The Chair’s his baby – he never leaves it behind. With Zola and the Chair both on that train, there’ll be a lot more security than we bargained on, and we are going to need a lot more back up if you want to get in and out alive.’

Steve stared at Bucky, uncomprehending exactly what he was saying but feeling a surge of protective anger swelling inside himself. He was going to destroy the Chair that loomed so large in Bucky’s nightmares. He was going to do it and fucking laugh while he did and he was going to hurt anyone and everyone who had ever made Bucky feel like the Soldier and…. Bucky was jumping up – why was he moving? 

‘What are you doing?’

‘You gotta jump, soon. And I’m coming with you.’

‘No,’ Steve growled, ‘you most certainly are not coming with me. We stick to the plan Agent Barnes.’

‘Since when have you ever stuck to the plan? Don’t start now on my account. Zola’s a high-flyer in Hydra, and if the Chair is on that train it almost certainly means more guards and more security. You need backup, and besides, you have no idea what Zola is like, and I do, so I’m coming with you onto that train, and that’s final, _Agent Rogers_.’

Steve bristled at Bucky’s tone. ‘No. You will stay here, I’ll get onto the train. That’s an order.’

‘Steve, you are such a – look, we don’t have time to argue, your jump window is closing. Just do it.’

Steve glared at Bucky, but lined up his hook gun and fired a long line anyway. It lodged into the rock just above where the train was about to pass. Steve grabbed the handles that he would use to rappel down onto the train, before twisting back to where Bucky stood, defiant and blazing with unspoken anger. 

‘We’ll talk about this later. _Stay here_.’

With that, he launched himself off the ledge and down towards the oncoming train. 

\---------

Bucky stared at Steve’s back as he swung himself over the edge and descended towards the train – towards the Chair. He was torn, half of him insisting that he get as far away as possible from Zola and the Chair and everything that Hydra had tainted, but the other half of him –

‘Fuck it.’ Bucky growled, and rushed to grab the spare set of rappelling handles. 

\-------------

Steve could feel the wind rushing past his face, relentless and icy, and wished that he had thought to bring goggles. At least he’d insisted on a helmet. He lined up his body with the train and timed his release perfectly so that he landed heavily on the roof of the right carriage and rolled. The roof was icier than he’d anticipated and he slid towards the edge, but managed to grab a rail and steady himself. As he was getting his breath back, he heard an ominous thump from behind him. Steve scrabbled to get upright, thinking that he’d been spotted by one of the train guards, but it was Bucky who had just thumped onto the roof behind him, squatting down to get his balance. Bucky’s lower face was muffled by a thick fleece and for a moment it looked uncomfortably like the Winter Soldier in his terrible black mask, but Steve shook it off. 

‘Barnes.’ Steve growled, furious beyond belief at the other man. 

‘Rogers. I’m here. Don’t make a fuss about it.’

‘But you –’

‘We’ve got a job to do. Let’s go.’ With that decisive statement, Bucky crossed over to Steve and steadied himself next to the hinges for the carriage door. Steve looked helplessly at him, then drew in another breath and tried to make himself trust Bucky’s competency and Bucky’s choices, even if he was disobeying an order from his Strike Leader in the field. Bucky was right – they had a job to do. 

Steve placed the small charge that would blow the hinges off the carriage door and stepped back while it blew with just enough force. Steve thanked any gods listening for Tony Stark and his penchant for explosions. He swung himself inside the car, followed closely by Bucky, and looked around. Bucky pulled out his gun, and Steve reached around for his, but – 

‘Steve. Please tell me you didn’t come on this incredibly dangerous mission without a firearm?’

‘It wasn’t gonna be incredibly dangerous, remember?’ Steve snapped at Bucky, because he did feel a little foolish for not having any kind of weapon on him at this precise moment. Bucky sighed and shouldered ahead of Steve, crouching behind the metal door that should, if their intelligence was correct, lead to the mysterious crate which Steve was meant to be tagging. The door was locked, the keypad to the left suggesting some kind of access code. As silently as he was able, Steve placed the tiny device that would bypass the code and open the door into the space below the keypad. He loved SHIELD when they gave him tiny gadgets that would let him get soundlessly into locked rooms without having to hurt other people. 

The keypad beeped green and the door unlocked. Steve pushed it open just a crack and peered into the room beyond. Over the noise of the train he could hear the voices of guards talking – three of them, he thought – and he could see, right in the centre of the room – 

Bucky gasped beside him and rocked back, away from the door. Steve whipped his head around. 

‘What’s wrong, Buck?’

‘The Chair – Steve, the Chair is in that crate.’

\--------

Bucky desperately to calm his heartbeat, which had thumped into overdrive when he’d craned curiously over Steve’s shoulder and caught a glimpse of the shiny metal shipping container that held his worst nightmares. He remembered, with sudden horrific clarity, the day Hydra had come for him, taking him from his house hoping that he’d be a good bargaining piece, forcing him to serve them when they realised that SHIELD wouldn’t come to save him. He remembered the first person he’d ever been sent to kill for Hydra, a thin politician who he’d caught in his rifle scope and held there for more than twenty minutes while he psyched himself up to take someone’s life. He remembered handing his gun over to his partner with shaking hands and whispering ‘I can’t do it’ in the dark of where they waited. He remembered the sick look on his partners’ face as he nudged Bucky out the way and took the shot himself. He remembered, afterwards, how his partner, who he’d trusted, had reported to their bosses how Bucky had frozen up, how he’d been disobedient and weak. Bucky remembered The Chair sitting menacingly in the middle of the shipping crate surrounded by lights and machines and technicians. He’d been strapped into the Chair while Zola – the small, nervous man Bucky had seen but never spoken to – fiddled with his machines and anxiously tapped his shoes on the metal floor. Bucky remembered the punishment of the headpiece coming down over his eyes and the pinch of the restraints on his arms and the blinding pain that followed. He remembered that the next time he’d had a target in his sights, he hadn’t hesitated and he hadn’t missed. 

‘Bucky? Bucky – look at me! Bucky!’ He was snapped out of his flashback by Steve’s loud voice in his ears and Steve’s worried face in his vision and Steve’s big hands hovering over his shoulders, not touching this time but still ready to hold him if necessary. Bucky blinked away the lingering memories and stared back at Steve. 

‘I’m alright Rogers, no need to let everyone know we’re here.’ He glared at Steve, relieved beyond belief that he hadn’t snapped and hurt him again, but too terrified to be anything other than rude.   
Steve breathed out. ‘Jesus, Buck. You sure?’ Bucky nodded in reply. ‘Well, that doesn’t change the mission. You stay here, I’ll tag the crate and we’ll get out of here. We’ll be ok, I promise. You don’t have to do anything – just stay here and I’ll be right back and –’

‘When you gonna stop trying to leave me behind, huh Rogers?’

‘Buck, listen –’

‘No you listen! There isn’t time for this argument. Inside that shipping crate is everything that Zola needs to punish and torture whatever poor souls Hydra got their claws into. Fuck the mission, and fuck SHIELD. They left me to Hydra once before and that Chair is the reason I became one of them in the end. I owe SHIELD my life, sure, but fuck them if they think I’m gonna follow the mission when the Chair is right there. I am going to destroy that crate and everything inside it – I’m not letting it get away from me – and if you’re not with me, then you can get out of my way.’

Steve stared at him for a long moment, mouth hanging slightly open. Bucky tried to parse out what was going through Steve’s mind, but his face was unreadable, as always. Finally, Steve swallowed and said, ‘I’m with you ’til the end of the line, Buck. I think we stopped blindly following the mission when you jumped on this train.’

I was blindly following _you_ , you asshole, thought Bucky to himself, but he didn’t say it, because it was too close to emotion and he couldn’t afford that right now. Instead, he hauled himself back into a crouch, leaned into the door once more and put away his gun. There was no good to come of firing it in such a small space. Steve mirrored him, crouched on the other side of the door, and watched as Bucky counted down on his fingers. Three – two – one – 

Steve slammed the door open and went straight for the first surprised guard, smacking his fist into the guards’ side and throwing him against the wall of the carriage. The second guard attempted to get behind Steve, but Bucky tackled him to the ground and drove down with his metal fist into the guy’s ribcage. The first guard had gotten up by now and was attempting to pin Steve to the floor, just out of Bucky’s reach as he grappled with the second guard. Bucky used his weight and heft to keep him on the floor as he rained punches down on his chest and face, dodging the guards’ flailing attempts to strike back. The guard got one lucky punch in, a wild fist that rammed into the side of Bucky’s head unexpectedly, and he dropped back to clear his dizzy vision. The second guard shook his head and lunged towards Bucky. Over the noise of the train he heard Steve yell out ‘No!’ and whipped his head around in time to see the third guard – and fuck, he’d forgotten the third guard – pull down on a large red alarm lever which was fixed into the side of the train. Immediately, the door which they had come in by hissed shut and locked itself with a beep. Steve reached the third guard just too late to stop the alarm from wailing out through the entire train, just too late to stop the guard from slipping a taser out of her pocket and holding it to Steve’s chest. Steve fell, convulsing, as Bucky watched and yelled out for him. The third guard pulled the second guard upright and together they ducked out of the carriage too quick to follow, sealing the door behind them. Bucky crawled over to Steve, out of breath and smarting from the blow to his face. Steve was in worse shape, his breathing ragged as he coughed and sat up. Steve’s eyes took a long moment to focus on his face. 

‘B – Bucky? What – ugh, my head – what happened?’

‘You got tased. The guards left. Hydra know we’re here.’ 

‘I’m so sorry Bucky, I couldn’t get to her in time. This is my fault.’ Steve shook his head and looked around them, at the swaying carriage they were locked into. From the other side of the door, Bucky could hear running boots and the murmur of voices. Hydra were coming for them, they would have Bucky back in their clutches – they would have Steve –   
No. That couldn’t happen. Bucky took a deep breath.

‘This isn’t your fault, Steve, you had no idea that the Chair was here and I was the one who changed the plan. It’s me who should be apologising.’

‘No, Bucky – no!’ Steve looked almost frantic at that. His eyes had cleared now and his voice had steadied. Bucky looked back to the shipping crate that housed the Chair. 

‘What do you say we complete our mission? Blow this popsicle stand to hell and make our getaway?’ he stood and held out his gloved left hand for Steve, who took it and stood with a groan. 

‘How do you suggest we do that? I didn’t bring anything – didn’t exactly expect to be blowing up shipping containers today.’

‘Lucky for you I am always prepared.’ Bucky smirked and took out the small explosive charges he’d hidden in his belt before the mission. So he was permanently concealing explosives on his body, so what? Today had proved that he needed them. 

Bucky and Steve worked quickly to place the charges around the shipping container, the urgent rumble of Steve’s voice as he radioed Maria for backup a reminder that they weren’t on their own in this. Bucky held the remote for the charges in his hand ready to blow them as soon as they were clear of the train.

The door banged open. Hydra agents wearing full combat gear poured into the carriage, levelling guns at Bucky and Steve. Shit! They weren’t ready for this! Bucky backed up until he felt the metal of the door at his back. His heart was pounding, his brain was screaming at him not to let them take him – 

Bucky pushed Steve behind himself, grabbed the remote and set off the charges. The explosion ripped through the carriage and all Bucky could feel was heat flattening him as the explosion popped the side of the train car outwards and rocked it on the tracks. Bucky felt himself blown backwards by the blast and out of the gaping hole in the train, out into the freezing Alpine air.

\-------------

Steve yelled out for Bucky to stop as he grabbed the remote and pressed the button to set off the explosions, but he couldn’t reach it before the charges did their job, and the air in the train car was full of flame and spark and flying metal. The shipping container holding the Chair burst into a hundred deadly metal pieces which sang as they passed him in the cold air. Steve could feel Bucky’s body in front of him, protecting him, and tried vaguely to hold him close as the explosion punched through the train car wall. They hadn’t been the most powerful charges, being only tiny and for use in emergencies, but they were powerful enough to throw Steve clear off his feet and send him sailing through the air into the far corner of the room. Everything was rushing past him, his ears were ringing and the only thought in his head was _Bucky, Bucky_. 

When the debris cleared, Steve could see the devastation that Bucky’s charges had wrought. The shipping container was a smoking wreck with the blackened frame of what looked like a dentists’ chair slowly disintegrating in the middle. The sick triumph that Steve felt at that only flashed through him for a moment – where was Bucky? Steve looked wildly around at the bodies of Hydra agents strewn around the car but he couldn’t see Bucky’s familiar dark hair or the flash of his arm. If he wasn’t inside the car, then – Oh no.

Steve ran over to the hole in the train car wall, hoping that he wouldn’t see Bucky’s body lying on the snow. Bucky had been blown halfway out of the door, clinging onto the peeled-away side of the train by one flimsy railing which was coming looser by the second. Bucky’s legs were dangling over the edge of the mountain. His face looked up at Steve with a sickening terror written nakedly all over it. Steve flattened himself along the metal that was still attached to the body of the car, inching towards Bucky. The metal railing Bucky was holding onto creaked and compressed under the force of Bucky’s left hand. 

‘Bucky! Hold on!’ he shouted over the howling wind.

‘Steve! No – get back!’ Bucky shouted back. Behind him, Steve could hear the groaning and hissing of the surviving Hydra agents pulling themselves together. 

‘I’m not leaving you!’ Steve extended his reach another tiny bit, hoping that he could reach Bucky before either the railing gave way or a vengeful Hydra agent decided to put a bullet in his back. He was almost there – his hand was only millimetres away from Bucky’s.

‘Steve – watch out!’ A bullet pinged past Steve’s head. Bucky let go of the railing at the same time as Steve lunged for him, hands grasping the air as Bucky fell backwards away from the rails. Steve propelled himself towards Bucky’s reaching hand with everything he had – 

\------  
– Bucky knew he was a goner from the second he’d seen his predicament. Steve was stupid and loyal and wonderful and good, and as long as Bucky was there he’d kill himself trying to save him – so Bucky knew he had to let go rather than see Steve fall alongside him –   
\-----

 

Steve’s hand closed around Bucky’s left wrist and clamped down. Steve pulled with all his strength to swing Bucky back alongside the car, his body hanging almost entirely out of the train, exposed along the floor and only clinging on with his legs. He couldn’t defend himself from Hydra’s bullets but he had Bucky’s hands in his and he was never letting go. 

\---------

Bucky realised that Steve had caught him. He twisted in Steve’s grip as more bullets thudded into the metal near where they hung, shielded a little by the debris from the shipping container.

‘Steve, let go! Save yourself, I’m not worth it, I’m not –’

‘No!’ Steve tightened his grip on Bucky’s wrists and tried to pull him upwards into the train, but Bucky was heavy, especially with the metal arm, and Steve couldn’t quite heft him up. Steve’s hands trembled. His grip was failing and he wouldn’t be able to hold Bucky up for ever. Bucky looked into Steve’s wide, worried eyes and knew that he’d launch himself into the mountain air if it meant that Steve might have a chance of getting out alive. 

‘I’m so sorry, Stevie.’ Bucky murmured, almost wistfully, before giving his wrists one last tug and jerking downwards, out of Steve’s reach at last, falling backwards into the cold, empty air…

\-----  
…Steve watched Bucky fall away from him, one hand still reaching up towards him as if in a plaintive goodbye… 

… and land in the rough embrace of the safety net stretched between two SHIELD jets that were hovering in position below them. Steve cried out as he saw Bucky hit the nets and bounce, coming to a halt in the middle of the large net. Steve sagged with relief, tears frozen where they had rolled down his cheeks as he’d watched Bucky fall. For a moment he was heart-stoppingly happy that Bucky was safe – then the bullets started thudding around him once more. Without a backwards glance, Steve flung himself out of the train after Bucky, sailing through the air for long seconds before landing hard on the net a few feet away from Bucky. Steve flailed, trying to make his limbs obey him. Bucky wasn’t moving, his body making a depression in the net that Steve rolled unstoppably towards. If Bucky was hurt – had the landing broken his neck, what if he was dead? – Steve came to a halt half on top of Bucky in the centre of the net, air screeching around them. He heard the hum of the hydraulic winches as the jets started reeling the net in, but he didn’t care. His only thought was for Bucky. Wincing as he moved, Steve reached out. 

‘Buck?’

Bucky coughed. Steve had never been so glad to hear that sound in his life. He reached for Bucky, wrapping the other man up in his arms as he held him tight, not quite believing that he was here, alive after all that had happened.   
Bucky opened his eyes and stared blearily at Steve. 

‘Steve. You’re here – where are we?’ Bucky’s eyes opened wider in panic. ‘Did Hydra –’

‘It’s ok, Bucky, I’ve got you. Hydra didn’t get us. We’re safe now.’ 

Bucky’s arms came up to hold onto Steve, snaking round his waist in a desperate bid for comfort. Steve just let himself hold Bucky and be held in return, silent and scared and seeking reassurance, as they were both reeled into the waiting plane. 

\------

Steve refused to let go of Bucky as they flew back to the Triskelion in silence, huddled together in a blanket and reluctantly letting Dr Cho check them over. Steve had growled possessively when Dr Cho had tried to take Bucky away, tightening his arms around Bucky’s shoulders as Bucky burrowed his face into Steve’s chest, not wanting them to be separated for one moment. Steve’s arms, strong and sure around him, were probably the only thing keeping him whole and together and grounded. Logically, Bucky knew that he’d have to let go of Steve sometime, have to step away from the embrace that was every bit as safe and warm as he’d dreamed about, but for the moment, both he and Steve seemed happy to stay wrapped up in each other. Bucky didn’t let himself hope that this new-found want to keep Bucky close was anything other than a reaction to their mission, didn’t let himself believe that Steve would want to keep on holding him once they got back to SHIELD and got some distance from each other. Bucky knew he was being selfish, but he would take as much of Steve’s affection as he could right now while Steve seemed to need it as much as he did. He fell asleep somewhere over the Atlantic, warm and secure under the blankets with Steve. 

\-----------

Steve held Bucky as he fell asleep in his arms, very aware of Bucky’s breath against his collarbone. He knew that he was being selfish, keeping Bucky in his arms like this, but he couldn’t let go – not when Bucky had looked at him with those lost-puppy eyes when he’d landed on the net. Not when Bucky had screamed at Steve that he wasn’t worth saving. No – Steve needed to hang onto Bucky like he needed to breathe air and eat food. Steve thought ahead to when they would touch down at the Triskelion – Bucky and he would no doubt be whisked away from each other for more medical attention and debriefing – and tightened his hold minutely. Worse than that image though, was the knowledge that he had no right to treat Bucky like this, like he was Steve’s to hold, because he wasn’t Steve’s… boyfriend… or his… anything, really. He was just Steve’s… friend. His pal, his buddy… his Bucky. Steve would never let him go again if he had anything to do with it. As Bucky dozed against him, exhausted and twitching in his sleep, Steve let himself dream of a future where he would get to hold Bucky as much as he wanted to.


	5. What are my arms made for if not to hold you?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of the train ordeal, Steve and Bucky's feelings for one another come out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is so damn sappy. Honestly, it's ridiculous. I've never written anything like this but I decided that silly boys needed some lovin' :)

Bucky woke at the booming of the jet touching down. He was disoriented for a moment, not knowing where he was, only that he was lying on something warm and solid…  
Memories of the train came crashing back. Himself, falling, Steve lunging after him and declaring that he would never let Bucky go… the hopelessness he’d felt looking up at Steve’s anguished face and strong arms above him, knowing that he’d have to let go sooner or later. The way he’d snuggled into Steve’s arms, all but demanded to be held as they flew home. 

A strange heartbeat was loud in his ears. Bucky jerked upright as the warm mass under him grumbled and shifted. Steve. He’d fallen asleep on Steve. Oh Jesus. Bucky stared down at Steve’s sleeping face as the other man shifted, trying to wrap his arms tighter around Bucky. Steve had saved him – that thought now hit him like a bucket of icy water to the face. Steve had put himself in danger, lain defenceless and exposed as he kept Bucky from falling, and now he was here, cradling him in his sleep as though he was something precious. Of all the ways he’d expected his day to go, Bucky could never have foreseen that. 

And he’d destroyed the Chair! He’d really done that, blown it to pieces aboard the swaying train, surrounded by Hydra Agents. Of course, that had been the catalyst for the sequence of events which had involved putting Steve’s life in more danger than it already was, seeing as how Bucky had fucked up Steve’s plan with his determination to destroy the Chair. Ah shit, Steve was going to be so pissed off with him when he woke up. He wouldn’t want to snuggle then. He’d regret ever listening to Bucky, ever bringing him on that mission. He had, after all, just committed mass murder by exploding the shipping container in such a small space and when it put Steve’s life in danger. It was a miracle that Steve hadn’t been killed by the blast. 

Bucky extricated himself from Steve’s arms, feeling a little sick. His heart pounded in his chest at the thought of what waited for him back at SHIELD. Whatever it was though, however much Fury yelled at him or punished him or demoted him, Bucky knew he would do it all over again in a heartbeat, to get rid of the cursed Chair that had haunted his nightmares for years. 

Rubbing the back of his neck idly, Bucky pushed himself to his feet and wandered off into the depths of the plane, wincing slightly as he hauled his bruised ribs around. 

\---------  
Steve woke up feeling cold and light. Disorientated, he found himself searching for whatever it was that should have been in his arms… Bucky! Steve bolted upright – how could he have forgotten? He’d let Bucky fall, he’d lost him now, he was – 

No. No, Bucky had got on the plane with him. He must have woken up and wandered off. Steve couldn’t blame him – who did Steve really think he was fooling, trying to convince himself that Bucky wanted to be held as much as Steve wanted to hold him? That was sheer dumb wishful thinking on his part. He should know better, should be more respectful. Slowly, ignoring the pain in his shoulders and arms from where he’d held Bucky’s weight on the train, he moved off in search of company. 

Steve stepped up into the cockpit of the plane, where Carol and Nat sat silently. Nat was about as good a pilot as anyone he’d ever met, but as soon as she heard Steve move behind her she handed control over to her co-pilot, Carol, and came to stand by Steve. Ushering him backwards again, away from the noise of the cockpit, Natasha spread her arms and let Steve walk into them. It felt good, to be the one being held for a change, but it wasn’t the same as having Bucky in his arms. Nat was a friend, and right now she was one of the only people Steve knew who would also be concerned for Bucky as well as himself. Still. It wasn’t the same.

‘What the hell, Steve?’ came Nat’s muffled voice from somewhere in Steve’s chest. 

‘Nat?’

‘You scared the shit out of me, you asshole. Never do that again.’

‘Sorry. In my defense –’

‘Nope. I don’t want your excuses, Rogers, I want you to promise me you won’t ever do anything dumb like that again. I saw your plans – what were you thinking, going in like that just the two of you?’

‘Can’t promise never to do anything dumb, Nat. You know me. And hey, it was a last-minute change of plans.’

Nat extracted her face from Steve’s chest. There was a suspicious damp patch under where her face had been, but – Nat didn’t cry, she’d never cried – Steve said nothing, just looked down at Nat’s angry, pale face and smiled tiredly. 

‘Goddamn it, Steve.’ Nat replaced her face in Steve’s chest and hugged him tighter. Touched by this display of affection from the normally stoic woman, Steve tightened his arms around her in return. They held each other for a long time, the physical touch grounding them both. 

‘Where’s James?’ asked Nat at last. 

Steve looked away. ‘Dunno. He’s somewhere around, I guess.’

‘Surprised you’ve let him out of your sight. You looked like you wanted to hold him from now til the end of the world earlier.’

‘I would, if he’d let me.’ Steve shocked himself by admitting that out loud. Nat gazed up at him again, eyes unwavering. 

‘You sap, Steve Rogers. Why don’t you tell him how you feel?’

‘You know how I feel about this, Nat. I won’t make any sort of move on him while he’s under my command. It wouldn’t be right.’

‘Steve, you’re such an idiot. It’s obvious to anyone with eyes how you two feel about each other. Go on, go find your boy and hold him tightly.’

‘Nat,’ sighed Steve, very tired of this conversation, ‘he isn’t my boy. He isn’t my anything, I’m not his anything. That’s the way it has to be.’

Nat stepped away from Steve and gave him a considering look. 

‘You may find yourself with a fight on your hands, if that’s the way you really think, Steve.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Just that you might want to consider James’ feelings right now. About everything.’

Steve thought of Bucky waking up and leaving Steve’s arms. He thought about Bucky yelling at him to let go, and his arms and shoulders gave an almighty ache with how much they missed holding him. Steve, however, hung his head in exhausted defeat of letting any thoughts except the rules he kept clinging to inside his brain in that moment. 

‘I’ve gotta do right by him, Nat. I can’t do anything else.’

Not wanting to say anything more on the matter, Steve left Nat standing there and went to find some water, and maybe some painkillers. He missed the long, painful look Nat levelled at his retreating back and the way she murmured ‘idiot’ fondly after he’d left. 

\-------

Bucky had tried to fall asleep again after leaving Steve, but nowhere had felt safe. When he closed his eyes, he saw flying metal and roaring flame and his icy death rushing up to meet him and Steve’s agonised face as he watched him fall… He eyed the pile of blankets that earlier had held himself and Steve. Would they still smell like him? No, that was pathetic. He was a grown man, godammit, and a SHIELD Agent. He was capable of looking after himself. Without looking at the heap of empty blankets, Bucky skirted around the room and went in search of somewhere soft and dark and warm to curl up. Finding nothing that looked as enticing as those blankets had done, he simply roamed the plane by himself until they came in to land. 

When the plane touched down, Bucky managed to sneak out without Steve seeing him. He watched as Steve disembarked, then turned around and looked expectantly at the other passengers as they trooped back into the Triskelion, obviously waiting for someone. Once Steve had shaken his head and left, Bucky felt safe to do the same. He stopped off at the medical bay, waving off requests to debrief from Maria and a very insistent Fury, to grab himself some painkillers and bandages, and then headed straight to his room. He hadn’t even showered but he didn’t care. Bucky was exhausted, and fell asleep as soon as he lay down on his bed. 

Only a few hours later, Bucky woke with a start, every muscle and joint in his body screaming with exhaustion and pain. He slowly showered, managing only to stand for a minute or so before he had to sit down on the tiled floor. Every movement was agony. He just about managed to get a bottle of water from the fridge in the communal kitchen before he had to head back to bed and lie down. Bucky swigged from the water and popped some painkillers into his mouth, tried not to gag on the swallow, and fell straight back asleep. This time, he dreamed about the train again, fire and ice and pain and Steve, and woke up nervous and out of breath. He stayed like that for a seemingly interminable length of time, just managing to fall back asleep before another nightmare jolted him awake again, more irritable and anxious each time. 

When Bucky woke up for the fifth time that night from a combination of the pain in his body and the terror in his brain, he almost sobbed with misery – why couldn’t he just sleep this off? His body craved something – but what? Something heavy and comforting, something warm and reassuring – not a blanket, no, not a bed… Steve. His body needed warm, solid Steve underneath him again. But – he couldn’t. It wouldn’t be right to inflict his nightmares on Steve. Bucky wrapped his arms around himself and let his exhaustion pull him back down into the dark of sleep. 

The next time Bucky woke, it was from a particularly painful nightmare that involved himself watching Steve fall off the edge of the train as he was helpless to save him. Before he really knew what he was doing, Bucky was up out of his bed and along the corridor to where he knew Steve’s room was. Bucky pounded on the door without stopping to think about what time it was or whether Steve was even there, no thought in his head beyond just getting to Steve and holding him tight. Immediately, the door flew open and Steve himself lurched out, reaching for Bucky and pulling him against his chest with a loud, ‘oh thank fuck!’   
Bucky wrapped his arms around Steve’s waist in return and let himself be pulled into Steve’s room. 

\-------

Once the door was closed behind them, Steve gently removed Bucky’s arms from around his waist despite the other man trying to cling to him. In truth, he had been just about to go and find Bucky when he turned up at his door, unable to sleep without reliving that awful moment where he thought he’d lost him. Now, though, Bucky was here. Had he been in the same situation as Steve, unable to sleep and lonely without companionship? Somehow, Steve doubted it. Bucky was one of the most self-reliant people Steve knew, and he probably didn’t miss being in Steve’s arms the way Steve missed holding him. But then why was he here? 

Steve placed a crooked finger under Bucky’s chin and tilted his head up slightly so that he could look into his eyes.

‘You alright?’ he murmured, struck by how good it felt to have Bucky in physical contact with him once more. 

Bucky gave a tiny shake of his head, and Steve pulled him against his chest again, guiding his head down to rest on Steve’s shoulder. 

‘It’s ok, Buck. I’ve got you. You can let it out.’ Steve’s mind suddenly crashed back to himself holding Bucky on that dreadful evening, aeons ago it seemed now, after Bucky had been taken over by a flashback that made him sob and shake. He’d wanted to be held then – wanted to be comforted. Maybe, just maybe, Steve could do the same thing now. Bucky shivered in Steve’s arms and Steve thought that ok, perhaps Bucky did need the reassurance as much as he did. As much as Steve hated to think of Bucky being not ok, it was kind of nice to know that he wasn’t the only one who craved this sort of physical intimacy. 

‘I’m so tired, Steve. Can’t sleep a fuckin’ wink, but I’m exhausted.’

‘Me neither. Keep seeing it… keep going back there every time I...’

Bucky burrowed tighter into Steve’s arms. It was an odd feeling, having him there. It felt right, but at the same time… achingly wrong, because Steve knew he couldn’t let himself feel anything for the man in his arms. As he looked down at Bucky, though, small and pliant in his arms, the wrecked look in Bucky’s eyes haunted him. Fuck it all, he thought, right now, he’d do anything to make that anguished look disappear. Steve pulled Bucky wordlessly back towards his bed. He pushed Bucky down into the sheets and tucked the blankets around him, then moved back to shut off the main light and leave only the bedside lamp to illuminate the room. Steve let himself sink into his armchair and looked over to Bucky, who was curled up in his bed, grey eyes watching him intently. 

‘Sleep. You might do better with someone else in the room. I’ll wake you up if you have another nightmare.’

Bucky stirred a little at that, made a tiny aborted movement with his metal arm. The plates shifted as though he’d wanted to reach out, but he held still. 

‘I’m not kicking you out of your own bed, Steve. If you feel anything like how I feel right now then you need to sleep as much as I do, and I don’t think you’re going to sleep very well in that chair.’

‘I never sleep after a mission anyway Buck. It’s fine. Go on.’

Bucky sighed and opened the blankets. ‘Get in,’ he ordered, and glared at Steve expectantly.  
Steve gave in. With a tiny smile, he levered himself out of the armchair and slipped into his bed beside Bucky. He couldn’t deny that he felt a possessive swoop of affection at the sight and feel of Bucky in his bed, and on any other night his thoughts might have turned to his sinful desires at having such a beautiful man in his bed, but right now Steve could think of nothing other than getting Bucky to sleep. 

The two men lay side-by-side in the dim light for a few minutes, before Bucky pressed himself minutely closer to Steve, and whispered something that Steve couldn’t quite hear, but sounded almost like, ‘is this ok?’ When Steve looked over at Bucky he could see tears welling up in his eyes and a scared, vulnerable look on his face. 

‘It’s fine,’ he murmured in reply, trying with his eyes to convey exactly how fine this actually was, exactly how much he’d thought about this moment. 

Steve pushed his left arm under Bucky’s back and tucked him into his side, lightly stroking Bucky’s silky dark hair. Honestly, Steve no longer cared how creepy he might look. Anything he could do to ease Bucky’s exhaustion and fear was just fine with him. For a long time that was all he did, cuddled Bucky close and soothed him gently, until the smaller man’s sobs dropped away and he slept in Steve’s arms again. 

\------

Bucky woke… not breathing heavily. Not sweating. Not with the memory of terror and ice in the corners of his brain. He’d actually managed to sleep soundly in Steve’s arms. He felt… refreshed. Trying not to disturb Steve, Bucky pushed himself up into a sitting position. Steve stirred and blinked, bleary eyes settling on Bucky as soon as they could focus. 

‘Buck? You sleep alright?’

‘Yeah, Stevie. Thanks for letting me stay. I should… get going, though. Don’t want to take up your bed.’

Steve lunged up and reached for Bucky, a stricken look on his face.   
‘No! Please, stay. If… if you want to stay, please, please do.’

‘Steve… I want to, but…’

‘Bucky… please?’

Steve looked up at Bucky from where he lay on the bed, and… it was like he was seeing Steve for the first time. Bucky saw something reflected in Steve’s eyes that looked like a mirror of his own desires. Understanding struck Bucky like a thunderbolt. Steve wanted him to stay. Steve wanted to hold him. Steve might even want… him? Perhaps, he dared to believe, in the same way that Bucky wanted, needed him? 

Bucky let Steve reach out a hand and place it on his shoulder, warm and placating. It wasn’t heavy, wasn’t forcing Bucky to stay against his will, just maintaining a steady, calming presence that gave Bucky the confidence to lean across and hover closer to Steve. Bucky brought his right hand over to cup Steve’s face, searching for any sign that this might be the wrong thing to do, and slowly lowered himself to press his lips oh-so-gently to Steve’s. 

Bucky felt Steve’s surprised inhale and started to pull away, but Steve’s hand moved from his shoulder to his arm and held him softly in place. Steve’s lips started to move against his own, soft and full and dry and warm and so, so good. Bucky had to break the kiss because he was smiling too much, his heart filled with sunlight. He pulled back just enough to look into Steve’s eyes. What he saw there was devotion and protectiveness and warmth and hunger calling out to him, and something deep within Bucky, something that he’d tried to burn out of himself, answered with a call of his own, communicating happiness and safety and comfort. Steve craned his neck up, slid a hand over Bucky’s jaw and kissed him again, no less gently than the first time, but this kiss felt like it meant so much more, felt like it meant everything. 

‘Buck,’ murmured Steve against his lips, ‘I’ve wanted to do that for so long.’

‘Me too,’ was all that Bucky could think to reply. Steve’s strong, safe arms came up to circle Bucky again, holding him tenderly. Bucky laid his cheek against Steve’s chest and tucked his knees across Steve’s thighs. They drifted off to sleep like that, both clinging to one another like baby animals in a storm. 

The next time Bucky woke up, it was to the rolling of Steve’s chest beneath his face. He stretched out his cramped legs, grumbling incoherently at being woken up from what had been a peaceful, dreamless sleep. Steve was moving under him, however, twisting and inching his body away. Bucky’s sleep-fogged brain could only manage a wordless questioning noise, but Steve heard it and understood. Bucky was aware of a hand stroking across his forehead and Steve quietly telling him to go back to sleep, that he was only going to the bathroom and would be right back. Obediently, Bucky lay back down but without Steve’s large, warm presence he found it hard to sleep. Instead, his brain became more awake as he remembered their kiss… had it been hours ago? Days? He couldn’t tell. Oh fuck he’d kissed Steve while they were both exhausted, in some kind of post-mission haze, and then fallen asleep on him. That was not how Bucky had imagined their first kiss going – there was no romantic sunset or elegant candle-lit dinner. So Bucky was a romantic – so what? So he’d thought about kissing Steve on a picnic blanket under a starry night – so what? None of the million first-kiss scenarios in his mind could measure up to the feeling of sleepy, comforting kisses and drifting to sleep safe in Steve’s arms. 

Too bad it was going to be their only kiss. Did Steve even wanted to kiss him again? Oh fuck what if he didn’t want to? What if Bucky had just taken advantage of him being sleepy and confused and – no. Steve had kissed him back, hadn’t he? Was it only Bucky’s imagination that he’d told him he’d wanted to kiss Bucky for a long time? It had to be, Steve wouldn’t say that in the normal course of things. Wouldn’t want him, in the normal course of things. This was just some misguided protective instinct as a good Strike Team leader, after the trauma of yesterday’s mission going spectacularly awry – and oh shit that was his fault too – and there was no way that Steve still wanted to kiss him. He should go, probably, before Steve came back. 

Slowly and unwillingly, Bucky extracted himself from Steve’s bed, but before he could make his escape Steve himself came back, wrapped in a long robe and with a pair of fuzzy slippers on his feet. Bucky couldn’t help but stare at them – so soft, so intimate somehow, to see Steve in fuzzy slippers was more intimate than kisses and sharing a bed. How was that possible? 

‘You’re leaving?’ The look on Steve’s face was nakedly dismayed. 

‘Yeah, I should.’ Ask me to stay oh please ask me to stay, please wrap me up in your arms and keep me safe. 

‘Oh. Well, if you want. I won’t make you stay. But… Bucky...’ Steve crossed the room to where he stood and slid his hand up Bucky’s jaw. He cradled Bucky’s face and looked into his eyes. ‘Don’t leave because you think I don’t want you here. Because I do. I do want you here.’

Steve leaned forward and brushed the softest kiss across Bucky’s lips, lingering for a moment with their mouths a fraction apart. Bucky allowed his head to inch forward in response, happiness welling up inside him. He hadn’t dreamt last night, he hadn’t imagined how fondly Steve looked at him, and although he could hardly believe it, the evidence of Steve’s feelings was right in front of him kissing him soundly and sighing into his mouth between every kiss. 

‘Stevie… I want to be here too.’ Bucky smiled at Steve in silent astonished delight.

‘You want to be here, I want you to be here… Bucky, this is… are you sure? I can’t help feeling that I’m taking advantage of you. Me being your team leader and all, I don’t want you to think that you can’t say no to me.’

‘Steve, as if I would! I’m here in your room because I want to be, I’m here holding you because I want to be. Because you didn’t let me fall. Because I want to be, and you want to be. That’s all there is to it.’

‘Are you sure?’ Steve repeated. The uncertainty in his voice stung Bucky somewhere deep inside. How could this gorgeous man be so unsure of being wanted? 

‘So fucking sure.’

‘That’s – Bucky, that’s wonderful. Please, stay here with me.’ Steve didn’t stop smiling the whole time they talked. 

Bucky kissed him again, wanting to be closer to this gentle, incredible man. Steve returned the kiss enthusiastically, wrapping his left arm around Bucky’s waist to draw him closer. The two men kissed deeply for long minutes, enjoying the closeness and warmth of being in each other’s arms, content to kiss and be kissed, hold and be held. After a while, though, the kisses lengthened and became hot and dirty, sticky with want and accompanied by short breathless panting. Bucky broke the kiss and stared at Steve.  
‘I want you so bad.’

Steve blushed furiously and moved his hand from Bucky’s waist to slip under his t-shirt, warm and rough against Bucky’s skin. He drew Bucky’s t-shirt up over his stomach and ribcage, letting his hands linger over Bucky’s abs. Bucky felt treasured and beautiful as he did so. Once his shirt was all the way off, however, Steve hissed in a breath of alarm.

‘Shit, Buck. Look at those bruises!’

Bucky looked down at himself to see that yes, his aching ribs had bruised and there were mottled patches all over his stomach and right arm. The only place that wasn’t bruised, because it never bruised, was his metal left arm and shoulder. Bucky was used to feeling self-conscious about that shoulder and all the scarring that came with it, but actually, he felt more unsure about letting Steve see his bruises, letting his see physical reminders of what Bucky had put him through. 

‘Never mind those bruises, they aren’t serious.’ Bucky wanted nothing more than to get Steve’s robe off in return, so he quickly undid the ties and slipped it off his shoulders. Underneath, Steve was wearing a tight t-shirt and loose pyjama pants. Bucky immediately pushed Steve’s own t-shirt up his chest, ignoring Steve’s attempts at looking after him for now, and pulled it over his arms. Wow. Bucky had been expecting Steve to have a nice body but seriously, come on, the guy was like a Greek statue. Acres of pale skin, tiny ginger freckles and rock-hard muscles rippled in the dim light of Steve’s bedroom. A trail of dark blond hair spilled from his belly down into his waistband and a few tufts of golden fuzz sat on his chest but otherwise he was hairless. Steve was a perfect Adonis in every way, but now an Adonic covered in bruises and scrapes that Bucky knew had been made by flying metal shrapnel and his own stupid idiocy. Detonating explosives right in front of Steve. What was he thinking? Any desire he’d felt at seeing Steve shirtless fled at the sight of those bruises and cuts, all those little hurts he’d caused this beautiful man. 

Steve reached up to smooth away the frown lines that appeared on Bucky’s forehead, and drew him close again. Hugs which had been brilliant before were even better shirtless, nothing between himself and Steve’s warm, rough skin. But still Bucky couldn’t forgive himself. 

‘Hey, it’s ok. I’m ok.’ Steve’s rumbling voice sounded deeper with their chests pressed together, the vibrations reaching into his own chest and towards his heart. 

‘I’m so sorry, Stevie. You’re hurt and it’s my fault.’

‘No! Bucky, how can you even think that? It not your fuckin’ fault – if anything, it’s mine. I was supposed to be in charge, I should have scoped that out better. If I’d been quicker I could have stopped that guard from pressing the alarm, could have ended the whole thing sooner.’

‘No! Steve – you wouldn’t even have had to if I’d stuck to the original plan – I shouldn’t have even been on that train, I should have listened to you!’

Steve huffed, a little fond, a little shaky. ‘Since when do you listen to everything I say, huh? You always question me, that’s actually partly why I like bringin’ you on those missions. You make me consider other angles, other plans. Now, I won’t say that it’s all my fault what happened, but it’s not all yours either. We did the best with what we could, and hey – we both survived. The Chair’s gone. And you – you told me to let you fall and I won’t, I’d never, I can’t…’ Steve’s voice choked up with tears and he clasped Bucky closer again, burrowing his face into the crook of Bucky’s neck. Bucky tightened his arms around Steve’s chest in return, offering comfort and reassurance that he was here and alive and mostly fine. He kissed over Steve’s nose and cheeks, because that was something he could do now, apparently, nuzzled up behind his ear and placed a line of kisses down the side of Steve’s throat. 

‘Buck, I can’t lose you. You said you weren’t worth it and I – let me show you how wrong you are? You’re worth so much to me and I hope you can see that. I would have followed you onto that train no matter what, ‘cause I’m with you, pal. Til the end of the line.’

Bucky breathed out. ‘Til the end of the line.’

Mindful of the bruises and scrapes which crosshatched both their bodies, Steve stepped forward so that Bucky had to step back, knees hitting the bed. Steve placed a hand on his left shoulder, not pressing down, never pushing or forcing, but showing Bucky what he wanted nonetheless. Bucky sat on Steve’s bed and turned his face back up to Steve, hoping that at least some of the love and hope he felt could be communicated with his eyes. 

‘Whatcha gonna do with me, huh Stevie?’ 

Bucky couldn’t help the scratch of his voice or the way his shoulders shivered. He was beginning to get hard and from this angle, he could see that Steve was too, the outline of his erection visible underneath his pyjama pants. Bucky could hardly believe this was happening to him. The sight of Steve half-naked as he knelt between Bucky’s spread legs was almost too much to bear. Steve grinned at him, let his right hand creep up Bucky’s thigh and squeeze his interested cock. Steve hooked his fingers into Bucky’s waistband and guided him to lift his hips, pulling off his pants. Once off, Steve motioned for Bucky to lie down on the bed, and followed him up so that he was hovering over him, a tender smile on his face. 

‘I’m gonna make you feel so good, Buck. Gonna show you how much you mean to me. Lie back baby, let me take care of you.’ 

As he was talking, Steve’s hand came up to stroke Bucky’s cock firmly. Steve grasped the base and pumped a few times, then Bucky watched as Steve ducked his head and licked all the way up from the root to the tip in one long, wet stripe. Bucky moaned and threw his head back, undone at the sight of Steve Rogers between his thighs looking as blissed-out as Bucky felt. Steve suckled gently at the tip of Bucky’s dick, pure pleasure and frustration and wet sensation, before sliding down to take the whole length in his mouth. It wasn’t the first time he’d had his cock in another guy’s mouth, but it was certainly the first time since he’d left Hydra almost a year ago, and he couldn’t remember anything ever feeling so good. Bucky let himself fall back all the way into the sheets and lost himself in the sensation of Steve rolling his balls between the fingers of one hand as he lapped at his cock with long, sweet movements of his tongue. 

It wasn’t the most skilled blowjob ever, but as far as Bucky was concerned, Steve’s mouth was a revelation. Soft and warm and wet and inviting, capable of slow, languorous licks and quick, rough swipes, both sin and absolution all at once. He felt himself getting closer and closer to climax and a dim, faraway part of himself was embarrassed at the speed with which he’d got there, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care that much when he felt as good as he did, Steve’s mouth suctioning tighter and wetter around his dick. Bucky reached a warning hand down between his legs and rested it in Steve’s hair. 

‘Steve, I’m gonna… uh, I’m gonna…’

Steve only sucked harder, tugging slightly on his balls, and Bucky came, bursting and spurting into Steve’s mouth. It felt endless, a release of pressure that had built up inside him for so damn long, and he wailed as he felt Steve sucking him through it, little zings of overstimulation making his hips twitch as he did so. Eventually, Steve pulled off him with an obscene pop of his mouth, continuing to lazily roll his balls between his fingers. 

Bucky lay stunned on the bed until he came back to himself enough to reach for Steve again. Steve pulled himself up the bed and Bucky snuggled into his arms again, his flesh hand resting on Steve’s chest. Steve dropped a tiny kiss to the top of Bucky’s head and he sighed in response, utterly happy. Steve shifted and Bucky could feel the weight of his solid cock dragging between his thighs, pressing against Bucky’s hip. He snuck his flesh hand down, trailed it between Steve’s abs and teased below his waistband, looking up into Steve’s face as he did to see what sort of reaction he was getting. Steve was gazing down at him with the same mixture of hope and steady devotion that he’d seen before. It would have been enough to make his knees go weak if he’d been standing. Bucky smirked as he felt Steve go from half-hard to very-interested as his hand brushed over Steve’s cock, inside his pants. 

‘Got something for me, Rogers?’

‘Oh God, Buck. That’s terrible.’ Steve was smiling down at him, one step away from confused laughter. 

‘Feels like you want something though?’ 

Bucky let the question hang in the air as he wiggled his hand round to grip Steve’s cock a little better. Steve moaned and opened up his thighs, spreading himself for Bucky. The thought of that was delicious enough to make a twinge of interest stir between Bucky’s own legs despite the earth-shatteringly good orgasm he’d had not five minutes ago. Steve opening up for him, taking him inside him while he moaned in that beautiful deep voice… Bucky’s fantasies had never felt closer to reality. 

Bucky slowly inched Steve’s pants down past his slim hips and over his thighs, marvelling at how trusting Steve was – trusting a man who only a day or so before had led Steve into a dangerous situation and almost got both of them killed – as he allowed Bucky to lower his mouth and drop tiny sensual kisses up Steve’s thighs. Steve shifted under him as Bucky lay nestled in between Steve’s legs and finally came face-to-face with his dick. It was large, uncut and flushed pink at the tip. He slicked his right hand with some of his own spit and gently took Steve’s cock in his hand. Bucky started to stroke, slowly at first and then faster, continuing to kiss Steve’s thighs and hips as he did so. Steve sighed under him, gave a little breathy moan every now and again but was otherwise silent as Bucky took him apart. 

Soon, he could feel Steve’s thighs begin to twitch and strain, and his hips begin to thrust upwards. Struck by the want to be back in Steve’s arms Bucky pulled away and hauled himself up the bed. Mindful of Steve’s and his own bruised ribs, he draped himself over Steve’s chest and wrapped his hand around Steve’s cock again. In this position, Bucky could kiss Steve’s wonderful warm lips and nuzzle at his long neck as he brought him closer and closer to orgasm. As Steve tensed, then came across his own stomach and Bucky’s knuckles, Bucky just kissed Steve deeper and more tenderly. He poured everything he had into the kiss they shared as Steve came down from his high and his body relaxed against the sheets, all the want and hope and gratitude and friendship and kindness and… yes, and even love... into that kiss. Bucky could feel it now, the love, every time he looked at Steve’s long eyelashes or trailed his palm over Steve’s bicep, and wondered how he’d ever not been in love with him. He realised that he’d been falling in love with Steve incrementally for some time now, for so long that he couldn’t remember a time when he couldn’t feel it. Maybe he’d started falling in love on the day he left Hydra, though he would never have admitted it back then. 

Steve used an old t-shirt to clean himself up, then he and Bucky leant into each other on the bed once more. Both men were naked and neither felt awkward about it, having trusted each other with their lives, trusting with their bodies seemed so natural after that. Bucky reached out and wrapped his metal hand around the back of Steve’s neck, pulled their foreheads together and exhaled slowly. He closed his eyes and rested, smiling slightly as he felt Steve’s hand come up to link his fingers with Bucky’s. 

‘I almost don’t want tomorrow morning to come. Just want to stay here, just us.’ He whispered. 

‘Bucky – it can be just us. If you want? From now on.’ Steve replied, sounding an quiet and unsure as Bucky felt. 

‘Yeah?’ Bucky replied, trying not to sound too hopeful. 

‘Yes, baby. I’d like to… take care of you. Id’ like to be yours for as long as you’ll have me. I might’ve… might’ve thought about that.’

‘Rogers, you idiot. I’m yours, of course I am, no question. As for me wanting you, I’ve got a hunch says it’s gonna be a long time before I stop wanting to be with you.’

Steve’s answer was in the form of a tight hug and a passionate kiss that blew Bucky away with all the love and happiness it contained. Content in each other’s arms at last, Bucky and Steve lay down in the bed again, whispering kisses and loving words to each other as they drifted off to sleep again. 

\------

Loving Bucky changed nothing. That was the conclusion Steve came to in the months following their ordeal on the train. Sure, maybe in some superficial ways, things had changed. Steve was a little more protective of Bucky these days and took every opportunity to hold him tight and cuddle up. Bucky reciprocated by constantly seeking out the warmth and safety of Steve’s arms, especially in the early months when they were still unsure of so much. But loving Bucky, and being loved by him, didn’t make the nightmares go away for either of them. Being in love with Bucky didn’t make the bad times any better, but perhaps it did give both of them some faith that the good days would come around again. It didn’t change their snarky dynamic when on missions, or the way they worked seamlessly together. It didn’t change the tenderness and gentility with which they handled each other when no-one else was looking. 

The first time Steve told Bucky he loved him was on a bridge in the middle of New York after taking down a squadron of Bucky’s ex-Hydra comrades. Turned out Hydra had had spies and informers inside SHIELD for years, including the leader of Strike Team Delta, Brock Rumlow. Double-crossed during a mission, Steve and Bucky had found themselves in a desperate life-or-death stand-off. Bucky had seen an opening and tried to convince Steve to run for safety, but Steve was having none of it. After Tony, Nat and Clint swooped in to back them up and tip the fight in their favour, Bucky had stalked over to Steve, gripped him tightly and almost shouted at him that he should be more careful, asshole, because Bucky couldn’t deal with loving some punk who was so goddamn reckless and stupid when it came to his own life. Steve’s eyes had widened and he’d immediately hugged Bucky right back, yelling at him as he did so that he loved the insubordinate jerk right back. They had glared at each other for a long, hot moment that Nat would later describe as ‘eye-fucking,’ before crashing into one another’s arms and continuing to yell and kiss each other until Maria had to separate them. 

The first time Steve pushed Bucky gently onto his back, opened himself up and rode him while Bucky stared up at him, hair fanned out on the pillow like a halo, he thought he’d never seen anything so beautiful in his life. He knew he was wrong, however, years later, when he saw the smile on Bucky’s face after Steve went down on one knee and proposed marriage to him with a ring inscribed with their promise to one another – til the end of the line.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaaand it's over! First finished fic :) thank you to everyone who has left me a kudos or a comment on this work, you all have been very encouraging and I love every interaction I get to have with you all. Come and see me at kateyfish.tumblr.com if you wanna chat

**Author's Note:**

> If you like enemies-to-lovers fics, you should also check out my other Stucky Modern AU, The Assistant. Let me know what you think! This one is not going to be a massive long story, just a lil something I had to get out of my brain.  
> Let me know what you think! Be nice, as you always are.


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